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"Marse  Henry" 

AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


HENRY    WATTERSON     (ABOUT    1908) 


"Marse  Henry" 


AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

^  VVH 

By 
HENRY  WATTERSON 

Volume  I 

Illustrated 

NEW^la^rYORK 

GEORGE  H.DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Library,  Univ.  ot 

North  GarMin* 


TO  MY  FRIEND 

ALEXANDER  KONTA 

WITH  AFFECTIONATE  SALUTATION 


"Mansfield/ 
1919 


ri 


A  mound  of  earth  a  little  higher  graded: 
Perhaps  upon  a  stone  a  chiselled  name: 

A  dab  of  printer's  ink  soon  blurred  and  faded — 
And  then  oblivion — that — that  is  fame! 

— Henry  Watterson 


[vii] 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 

PAGE 

I  Am  Born  and  Begin  to  Take  Notice — John 
Quincy  Adams  and  Andrew  Jackson — James  K. 
Polk  and  Franklin  Pierce — Jack  Dade  and 
"Beau  Hickman" — Old  Times  in  Washington  .       15 

CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 

Slavery  the  Trouble-maker — Break-up  of  the 
Whig  Party  and  Rise  of  the  Republican — The 
Key — Sickle's  Tragedy — Brooks  and  Sumner 
— Life  at  Washington  in  the  Fifties      ...       49 

CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 

The  Inauguration  of  Lincoln — I  Quit  Washington 
and  Return  to  Tennessee — A  Run-a-bout  with 
Forest — Through  the  Federal  Lines  and  a 
Dangerous  Adventure — Good  Luck  at  Memphis      75 

CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 

I  Go  to  London — Am  Introduced  to  a  Notable  Set 
■ — Huxley,  Spencer,  Mill  and  Tyndall — Arte- 
mus  Ward  Comes  to  Town — The  Savage  Club  .       97 

CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 

Mark  Twain — The  Original  of  Colonel  Mulberry 
Sellers — The  "Earl  of  Durham" — Some  Noctes 
Ambrosiane — A  Joke  on  Murat  Halstead        .     119 

[ix] 


CONTENTS 

PASS 

CHAPTER  THE  SIXTH 

Houston  and  Wigfall  of  Texas — Stephen  A. 
Douglas — The  Twaddle  About  Puritans  and 
Cavaliers — Andrew  Johnson  and  John  C.  Breck- 
enridge 134 

CHAPTER  THE  SEVENTH 

An  Old  Newspaper  Rookery — Reactionary  Sec- 
tionalism in  Cincinnati  and  Louisville — The 
Courier-Journal 161 

CHAPTER  THE  EIGHTH 

Feminism  and  Woman  Suffrage — The  Adventures 
in  Politics  and  Society — A  Real  Heroine  .     .     186 

CHAPTER  THE  NINTH 

Dr.  Norvin  Green — Joseph  Pulitzer — Chester  A. 
Arthur — General  Grant — The  Case  of  Fitz- 
John  Porter 200 

chapter  the  tenth 

Of  Liars  and  Lyings — Woman  Suffrage  and  Femin- 
ism— The  Professional  Female — Parties,  Poli- 
tics, and  Politicians  in  America 219 

CHAPTER  THE  ELEVENTH 

Andrew  Johnson — The  Liberal  Convention  in  1872 
— Carl  Schurz — The  "  Quadrilateral  ' ' — Sam 
Bowles,  Horace  White  and  Murat  Halstead — 
A  Queer  Composite  of  Incongruities     .     .     .     236 

w 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  THE  TWELFTH 

The  Ideal  in  Public  Life — Politicians,  Statesmen 
and  Philosophers — The  Disputed  Presidency 
in  1876-7 — The  Personality  and  Character  of 
Mr.  Tilden — His  Election  and  Exclusion  by  a 
Partisan  Tribunal 268 


[xi] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Henry  Watterson  (about  1908)    ....  Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Henry  Clay — Painted  at  Ashland  by  Dodge  for 
the  Hon.  Andrew  Ewing  op  Tennessee — The 
Original  Hangs  in  Mr.  Watterson's  Library 
at  "Mansfield" 56 

W.  P.  Hardee,  Lieutenant  General  C.S.A.       .     .       64 

John  Bell  of  Tennessee — In  1860  Presidential 
Candidate  "Union  Party" — "Bell  and  Ever- 
ett" Ticket 80 

Artemus  Ward 112 

General  Leonidas  Polk — Lieutenant  General 
C.S.A.  Killed  in  Georgia,  June  14,  1864 — P.  E. 
Bishop  of  Louisiana 128 

Mr.  Watterson's  Editorial  Staff  in  1868  When  the 
Three  Daily  Newspapers  of  Louisville  Were 
United  into  the  Courier-Journal.  Mr.  George 
D.  Prentice  and  Mr.  Watterson  are  in  the 
Center 176 

Abraham  Lincoln  in  1861.  From  a  Photograph  by 
M.  B.  Brady 240 

Mrs.  Lincoln  in  1861      .........     256 

[xiii] 


"Marse  Henry" 


"MARSE  HENRY" 


CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 

I  AM  BORN  AND  BEGIN  TO  TAKE  NOTICE — JOHN 
QUINCY  ADAMS  AND  ANDREW  JACKSON — JAMES 
K.  POLK  AND  FRANKLIN  PIERCE — JACK  DADE 
AND  "BEAU  HICKMAN" — OLD  TIMES  IN  OLD 
WASHINGTON 

I 

1  AM  asked  to  jot  down  a  few  autobiographic 
■*■  odds  and  ends  from  such  data  of  record  and 
memory  as  I  may  retain.  I  have  been  something, 
of  a  student  of  life ;  an  observer  of  men  and  women 
and  affairs;  an  appraiser  of  their  character,  their 
conduct,  and,  on  occasion,  of  their  motives.  Thus, 
a  kind  of  instinct,  which  bred  a  tendency  and  grew 
to  a  habit,  has  led  me  into  many  and  diverse  com- 
panies, the  lowest  not  always  the  meanest. 

Circumstance  has  rather  favored  than  hindered 
this  bent.    I  was  born  in  a  party  camp  and  grew  to 

[15] 


y 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

manhood  on  a  political  battlefield.  I  have  lived 
through  stirring  times  and  in  the  thick  of  events. 
In  a  vein  colloquial  and  reminiscential,  not  am- 
bitious, let  me  recall  some  impressions  which  these 
have  left  upon  the  mind  of  one  who  long  ago 
reached  and  turned  the  corner  of  the  Scriptural 
limitation;  who,  approaching  fourscore,  does  not 
yet  feel  painfully  the  frost  of  age  beneath  the 
ravage  of  time's  defacing  waves.  Assuredly  they 
have  not  obliterated  his  sense  either  of  vision  or 
vista.    Mindful  of  the  adjuration  of  Burns, 

Keep  something  to  yourself, 
Ye  scarcely  tell  to  ony, 

I  shall  yet  hold  little  in  reserve,  having  no  state 
secrets  or  mysteries  of  the  soul  to  reveal. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  be  or  to  seem  oracular. 
I  shall  not  write  after  the  manner  of  Rousseau, 
whose  Confessions  had  been  better  honored  in  the 
breach  than  the  observance,  and  in  any  event  whose 
sincerity  will  bear  question;  nor  have  I  tales  to  tell 
after  the  manner  of  Paul  Barras,  whose  Memoirs 
have  earned  him  an  immortality  of  infamy. 
Neither  shall  I  emulate  the  grandiose  volubility  and 
self-complacent  posing  of  Metternich  and  Talley- 
[16] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

rand,  whose  pretentious  volumes  rest  for  the  most 
part  unopened  upon  dusty  shelves.  I  aspire  to 
none  of  the  honors  of  the  historian.  It  shall  be 
my  aim  as  far  as  may  be  to  avoid  the  garrulity  of 
the  raconteur  and  to  restrain  the  exaggerations  of 
the  ego.  But  neither  fear  of  the  charge  of  self- 
exploitation  nor  the  specter  of  a  modesty  oft  too 
obtrusive  to  be  real  shall  deter  me  from  a  proper 
freedom  of  narration,  where,  though  in  the  main 
but  a  humble  chronicler,  I  must  needs  appear  upon 
the  scene  and  speak  of  myself;  for  I  at  least  have^/ 
not  always  been  a  dummy  and  have  sometimes  in 
a  way  helped  to  make  history. 

In  my  early  life — as  it  were,  my  salad  days — I 
aspired  to  becoming  what  old  Simon  Cameron 
called  "one  of  those  damned  literary  fellows"  and/  ^ 
Thomas  Carlyle  less  profanely  described  as  "a  lee- 
terary  celeebrity."  But  some  malign  fate  always 
sat  upon  my  ambitions  in  this  regard.  It  was  easy 
to  become  The  National  Gambler  in  Nast's  car- 
toons, and  yet  easier  The  National  Drunkard 
through  the  medium  of  the  everlasting  mint- julep 
joke;  but  the  phantom  of  the  laurel  crown  would 
never  linger  upon  my  fair  young  brow. 

Though  I  wrote  verses  for  the  early  issues  of 

[17] 


a 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Harper's  Weekly — happily  no  one  can  now  prove 
them  on  me,  for  even  at  that  jejune  period  I  had 
the  prudence  to  use  an  anonym — the  Harpers, 
luckily  for  me,  declined  to  publish  a  volume  of  my 
poems.  I  went  to  London,  carrying  with  me  "the 
great  American  novel."  It  was  actually  accepted 
by  my  ever  too  partial  friend,  Alexander  Macmil- 
lan.  But,  rest  his  dear  old  soul,  he  died  and  his 
successors  refused  to  see  the  transcendent  merit  of 
that  performance,  a  view  which  my  own  maturing 
sense  of  belles-lettres  values  subsequently  came  to 
verify. 

When  George  Harvey  arrived  at  the  front  I 
1u  'ad  'opes."  But,  Lord,  that  cast-iron  man  had 
never  any  bookish  bowels  of  compassion — or  politi- 
cal either  for  the  matter  of  that ! — so  that  finally  I 
gave  up  fiction  and  resigned  myself  to  the  humble 
i  category  of  the  crushed  tragi-comedians  of  litera- 
ture, who  inevitably  drift  into  journalism. 

Thus  my  destiny  has  been  casual.  A  great  man 
of  letters  quite  thwarted,  I  became  a  newspaper 
reporter — a  voluminous  space  writer  for  the  press 
— now  and  again  an  editor  and  managing  editor — 
until,  when  I  was  nearly  thirty  years  of  age,  I  hit 
the  Kentucky  trail  and  set  up  for  a  journalist.  I  did 
[18] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

this,  however,  with  a  big  "J,"  nursing  for  a  while 
some  faint  ambitions  of  statesmanship — even  office 
— but  in  the  end  discarding  everything  that  mightV 
obstruct  my  entire  freedom,  for  I  came  into  th< 
world  an  insurgent,  or,  as  I  have  sometimes  desj 
cribed  myself  in  the  Kentucky  vernacular,  "a  fref 
nigger  and  not  a  slave  nigger." 

ii 

Though  born  in  a  party  camp  and  grown  to  man- 1 
hood  on  a  political  battlefield  my  earlier  years  were  ; 
most  seriously  influenced  by  the  religions  spirit  of 
the  times.  We  passed  to  and  fro  between  Wash- 
ington and  the  two  family  homesteads  in  Tennessee, 
which  had  cradled  respectively  my  father  and 
mother,  Beech  Grove  in  Bedford  County,  and 
Spring  Hill  in  Maury  County.  Both  my  grand- 
fathers were  devout  churchmen  of  the  Presbyterian 
faith.  My  Grandfather  Black,  indeed,  was  the  son 
of  a  Presbyterian  clergyman,  who  lived,  preached 
and  died  in  Madison  County,  Kentucky.  He  was 
descended,  I  am  assured,  in  a  straight  line  from 
that  David  Black,  of  Edinburgh,  who,  as  Burkle 
tells  us,  having  declared  in  a  sermon  that  Elizabeth 
of  England  was  a  harlot,  and  her  cousin,  Mary 

[19] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Queen  of  Scots,  little  better,  went  to  prison  for  it 
— all  honor  to  his  memory. 

My  Grandfather  Watterson  was  a  man  of  mark 
in  his  day.  He  was  decidedly  a  constructive — the 
projector  and  in  part  the  builder  of  an  important 
railway  line — an  early  friend  and  comrade  of  Gen- 
eral Jackson,  who  was  all  too  busy  to  take  office, 
and,  indeed,  who  throughout  his  life  disdained  the 
ephemeral  honors  of  public  life.  The  Wattersons 
had  migrated  directly  from  Virginia  to  Tennessee. 

The  two  families  were  prosperous,  even  wealthy 
for  those  days,  and  my  father  had  entered  public 
life  with  plenty  of  money,  and  General  Jackson 
for  his  sponsor.  It  was  not,  however,  his  ambitions 
or  his  career  that  interested  me — that  is,  not  until 
I  was  well  into  my  teens — but  the  camp  meetings 
and  the  revivalist  preachers  delivering  the  Word 
of  God  with  more  or  less  of  ignorant  yet  often  of 
very  eloquent  and  convincing  fervor. 

The  wave  of  the  great  Awakening  of  1800  had 
not  yet  subsided.  Bascom  was  still  alive.  I  have 
heard  him  preach.  The  people  were  filled  with 
thoughts  of  heaven  and  hell,  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  and  the  life  everlasting,  of  the  Redeemer 
and  the  Cross  of  Calvary.  The  camp  ground  wit- 
[20] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

nessed  an  annual  muster  of  the  adjacent  country- 
side. The  revival  was  a  religious  hysteria  lasting 
ten  days  or  two  weeks.  The  sermons  were  appeals 
to  the  emotions.  The  songs  were  the  outpourings 
of  the  soul  in  ecstacy.  There  was  no  fanaticism  of 
the  death-dealing,  proscriptive  sort;  nor  any  con- 
scious cant ;  simplicity,  childlike  belief  in  future  re- 
wards and  punishments,  the  orthodox  Gospel  the 
universal  rule.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  doughty 
controversy  between  the  churches,  as  between  the 
parties;  but  love  of  the  Union  and  the  Lord  was 
the  bedrock  of  every  confession. 

Inevitably  an  impressionable  and  imaginative 
mind  opening  to  such  sights  and  sounds  as  it 
emerged  from  infancy  must  have  been  deeply  af- 
fected. Until  I  was  twelve  years  old  the  enchant- 
ment of  religion  had  complete  possession  of  my 
understanding.  With  the  loudest,  I  could  sing  all 
the  hymns.  Being  early  taught  in  music  I  began 
to  transpose  them  into  many  sorts  of  rhythmic 
movement  for  the  edification  of  my  companions. 
Their  words,  aimed  directly  at  the  heart,  sank, 
never  to  be  forgotten,  into  my  memory.  To  this 
day  I  can  repeat  the  most  of  them — though  not 
without  a  break  of  voice — while  too  much  dwelling 

[21] 


L. 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

upon  them  would  stir  me  to  a  pitch  of  feeling 
which  a  life  of  activity  in  very  different  walks  and 
ways  and  a  certain  self-control  I  have  been  always 
able  to  command  would  scarcely  suffice  to  restrain. 

The  truth  is  that  I  retain  the  spiritual  essentials 
I  learned  then  and  there.  I  never  had  the  young 
man's  period  of  disbelief.  There  has  never  been  a 
time  when  if  the  Angel  of  Death  had  appeared 
upon  the  scene — no  matter  how  festal — I  would 
not  have  knelt  with  adoration  and  welcome;  never 
a  time  on  the  battlefield  or  at  sea  when  if  the  ele- 
ments had  opened  to  swallow  me  I  would  not  have 
gone  down  shouting! 

Sectarianism  in  time  yielded  to  universalism. 
Theology  came  to  seem  to  my  mind  more  and  more 
a  weapon  in  the  hands  of  Satan  to  embroil  and 
divide  the  churches.  I  found  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  leading  enough  for  my  ethical  guidance, 
in  the  life  and  death  of  the  Man  of  Galilee  inspira- 
tion enough  to  fulfill  my  heart's  desire ;  and  though 
I  have  read  a  great  deal  of  modern  inquiry — from 
Renan  and  Huxley  through  Newman  and  Doll- 
inger,  embracing  debates  before,  during  and  after 
the  English  upheaval  of  the  late  fifties  and  the 
Ecumenical  Council  of  1870,  including  the  various 
[22] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

raids  upon  the  Westminster  Confession,  especially 
the  revision  of  the    Bible,  down  to  writers  like 
Frederic  Harrison  and  Doctor  Campbell — I  have  a 
found  nothing  to  shake  my  childlike  faith  in  the  | 
simple  rescript  of  Christ  and  Him  crucified.  j 

in 

From  their  admission  into  the  Union,  the  States 
of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  have  held  a  relation  to 
the  politics  of  the  country  somewhat  dispropor- 
tioned  to  their  population  and  wealth.  As  be- 
tween the  two  parties  from  the  Jacksonian  era  to 
the  War  of  Sections,  each  was  closely  and  hotly 
contested.  If  not  the  birthplace  of  what  was  called 
"stump  oratory,"  in  them  that  picturesque  form  of 
party  warfare  flourished  most  and  lasted  longest. 
The  "barbecue"  was  at  once  a  rustic  feast  and  a 
forum  of  political  debate.  Especially  notable  was 
the  presidential  campaign  of  1840,  the  year  of 
my  birth,  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler,"  for  the  Whig 
slogan — "Old  Hickory"  and  "the  battle  of  New 
Orleans,"  the  Democratic  rallying  cry — Jackson 
and  Clay,  the  adored  party  chieftains.  , 

I  grew  up  in  the  one  State,  and  have  passed  the 
rest  of  my  life  in  the  other,  cherishing  for  both  a 

[23] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

deep  affection,  and,  maybe,  over-estimating  their 
hold  upon  the  public  interest.  Excepting  General 
Jackson,  who  was  a  fighter  and  not  a  talker,  their 
public  men,  with  Henry  Clay  and  Felix  Grundy  in 
the  lead,  were  "stump  orators."  He  who  could  not 
relate  and  impersonate  an  anecdote  to  illustrate  and 
clinch  his  argument,  nor  "make  the  welkin  ring" 
with  the  clarion  tones  of  his  voice,  was  politically 
good  for  nothing.  James  K.  Polk  and  James  C. 
Jones  led  the  van  of  stump  orators  in  Tennessee, 
Ben  Hardin,  John  J.  Crittenden  and  John  C. 
Breckenridge  in  Kentucky.  Tradition  still  has 
stories  to  tell  of  their  exploits  and  prowess,  their  wit 
and  eloquence,  even  their  commonplace  sayings 
and  doings.  They  were  marked  men  who  never 
failed  to  captivate  their  audiences.  The  system  of 
stump  oratory  had  many  advantages  as  a  public 
force  and  was  both  edifying  and  educational. 
There  were  a  few  conspicuous  writers  for  the  press, 
such  as  Ritchie,  Greeley  and  Prentice.  But  the 
day  of  personal  journalism  and  newspaper  in- 
fluence came  later. 

I  was  born  at  Washington — February  16,  1840 
— "a  bad  year  for  Democrats,"  as  my  father  used 
[24] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  say,  adding:    "I  am  afraid  the  boy  will  grow  up 
to  be  a  Whig." 

In  those  primitive  days  there  were  only  Whigs 
and  Democrats.  Men  took  their  politics,  as  their 
liquor,  "straight";  and  this  father  of  mine  was  an 
undoubting  Democrat  of  the  schools  of  Jefferson 
and  Jackson.  He  had  succeeded  James  K.  Polk 
in  Congress  when  the  future  President  was  elected 
governor  of  Tennessee ;  though  when  nominated  he 
was  little  beyond  the  age  required  to  qualify  as  a 
member  of  the  House. 

To  the  end  of  his  long  life  he  appeared  to  me  the 
embodiment  of  wisdom,  integrity  and  couarge. 
And  so  he  was — a  man  of  tremendous  force  of 
character,  yet  of  surpassing  sweetness  of  disposi- 
tion; singularly  disdainful  of  office,  and  indeed  of 
preferment  of  every  sort;  a  profuse  maker  and  a 
prodigal  spender  of  money;  who,  his  needs  and 
recognition  assured,  cared  nothing  at  all  for  what 
he  regarded  as  the  costly  glories  of  the  little  great 
men  who  rattled  round  in  places  often  much  too 
big  for  them. 

Immediately  succeeding  Mr.  Polk,  and  such  a 
youth  in  appearance,  he  attracted  instant  attention. 
His  father,  my  grandfather,  allowed  him  a  larger 

[25] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

income  than  was  good  for  him — seeing  that  the  per 
diem  then  paid  Congressmen  was  altogethr  insuffi- 
cient— and  during  the  earlier  days  of  his  sojourn  in 
the  national  capital  he  cut  a  wide  swath ;  his  princi- 
pal yokemate  in  the  pleasures  and  dissipations  of 
those  times  being  Franklin  Pierce,  at  first  a  repre- 
sentative and  then  a  senator  from  New  Hampshire. 
Fortunately  for  both  of  them,  they  were  whisked 
out  of  Washington  by  their  families  in  1843;  my 
father  into  the  diplomatic  service  and  Mr.  Pierce 
to  the  seclusion  of  his  New  England  home.  They 
kept  in  close  touch,  however,  the  one  with  the  other, 
and  ten  years  later,  in  1853,  were  back  again  upon 
the  scene  of  their  rather  conspicuous  frivolity, 
Pierce  as  President  of  the  United  States,  my  fa- 
ther, who  had  preceded  him  a  year  or  two,  as  editor 
of  the  Washington  Union,  the  organ  of  the  Ad- 
ministration. 

When  I  was  a  boy  the  national  capital  was  still 
rife  with  stories  of  their  escapades.  One  that  I 
recall  had  it  that  on  a  certain  occasion  returning 
from  an  excursion  late  at  night  my  father  missed 
his  footing  and  fell  into  the  canal  that  then  divided 
the  city,  and  that  Pierce,  after  many  fruitless  ef- 
forts, unable  to  assist  him  to  dry  land,  exclaimed, 
[26] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Well,  Harvey,  I  can't  get  you  out,  but  I'll  get  in 
with  you,"  suiting  the  action  to  the  word.  And 
there  they  were  found  and  rescued  by  a  party  of 
passers,  very  well  pleased  with  themselves. 

My  father's  absence  in  South  America  extended 
over  two  years.  My  mother's  health,  maybe  her 
aversion  to  a  long  overseas  journey,  kept  her  at 
home,  and  very  soon  he  tired  of  life  abroad  without 
her  and  came  back.  A  committee  of  citizens  went 
on  a  steamer  down  the  river  to  meet  him,  the  wife 
and  child  along,  of  course,  and  the  story  was  told 
that,  seated  on  the  paternal  knee  curiously  observ- 
ant of  every  detail,  the  brat  suddenly  exclaimed, 
"Ah  ha,  pa!  Now  you've  got  on  your  store  clothes. 
But  when  ma  gets  you  up  at  Beech  Grove  you'll 
have  to  lay  off  your  broadcloth  and  put  on  your 
jeans,  like  I  do." 

Being  an  only  child  and  often  an  invalid,  I  was  a 
pet  in  the  family  and  many  tales  were  told  of  my;  4 
infantile  precocity.  On  one  occasion  I  had  a  fight* l 
with  a  little  colored  boy  of  my  own  age  and  I  need 
not  say  got  the  worst  of  it.  My  grandfather,  who 
came  up  betimes  and  separated  us,  said,  "he  has 
blackened  your  eye  and  he  shall  black  your  boots," 
thereafter  making  me  a  deed  to  the  lad.    We  grew 

[27] 


/ 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

up  together  in  the  greatest  amity  and  in  due  time  I 
gave  him  his  freedom,  and  again  to  drop  into  the 
I  vernacular — "that   was    the    only   nigger    I    ever 
I  owned."     I  should  add  that  in  the  "War  of  Sec- 
tions" he  fell  in  battle  bravely  fighting  for  the  free- 
dom of  his  race. 
ft     It  is  truth  to  say  that  I  cannot  recall  the  time 
/when  I  was  not  passionately  opposed  to  slavery,  a 
J  crank  on  the  subject  of  personal  liberty,  if  I  am  a 
'   crank  about  anything. 

IV 

In  those  days  a  less  attractive  place  than  the  city 
of  Washington  could  hardly  be  imagined.  It  was 
scattered  over  an  ill-paved  and  half -filled  oblong 
extending  east  and  west  from  the  Capitol  to  the 
White  House,  and  north  and  south  from  the  line  of 
the  Maryland  hills  to  the  Potomac  River.  One  does 
not  wonder  that  the  early  Britishers,  led  by  Tom 
Moore,  made  game  of  it,  for  it  was  both  unprom- 
ising and  unsightly. 

Private  carriages  were  not  numerous.   Hackney 

coaches  had  to  be  especially  ordered.     The  only 

public  conveyance  was  a  rickety  old  omnibus  which, 

making  hourly  trips,  plied  its  lazy  journey  between 

[28] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  Navy  Yard  and  Georgetown.  There  was  a 
livery  stable — Kimball's — having  "stalls,"  as  the 
sleeping  apartments  above  came  to  be  called,  thus 
literally  serving  man  and  beast.  These  stalls  often 
lodged  very  distinguished  people.  Kimball,  the 
proprietor,  a  New  Hampshire  Democrat  of  impos- 
ing appearance,  was  one  of  the  last  Washingtonians 
to  wear  knee  breeches  and  a  ruffled  shirt.  He  was  a 
great  admirer  of  my  father  and  his  place  was  a 
resort  of  my  childhood. 

One  day  in  the  early  April  of  1852  I  was 
humped  in  a  chair  upon  one  side  of  the  open  en- 
trance reading  a  book — Mr.  Kimball  seated  on  the 
other  side  reading  a  newspaper — when  there  came 
down  the  street  a  tall,  greasy-looking  person,  who 
as  he  approached  said:  "Kimball,  I  have  another 
letter  here  from  Frank." 

"Well,  what  does  Frank  say?" 

Then  the  letter  was  produced,  read  and  discussed. 

It  was  all  about  the  coming  National  Democratic 
Convention  and  its  prospective  nominee  for  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  "Frank"  seeming  to  be 
a  principal.  To  me  it  sounded  very  queer.  But  I 
took  it  all  in,  and  as  soon  as  I  reached  home  I  put 
it  up  to  my  father: 

[29] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"How  comes  it,"  I  asked,  "that  a  big  old  loafer 
gets  a  letter  from  a  candidate  for  President  and 
talks  it  over  with  the  keeper  of  a  livery  stable? 
What  have  such  people  to  do  with  such  things?" 

My  father  said:  "My  son,  Mr.  Kimball  is  an  es- 
timable man.  He  has  been  an  important  and 
popular  Democrat  in  New  Hampshire.  He  is  not 
without  influence  here.  The  Frank  they  talked 
about  is  Gen.  Franklin  Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire, 
an  old  friend  and  neighbor  of  Mr.  Kimball.  Gen- 
eral Pierce  served  in  Congress  with  me  and  some 
of  us  are  thinking  that  we  may  nominate  him  for 
President.  The  'big  old  loafer,'  as  you  call  him, 
was  Mr.  John  C.  Rives,  a  most  distinguished  and 
influential  Democrat  indeed." 

Three  months  later,  when  the  event  came  to  pass, 
I  could  tell  all  about  Gen.  Franklin  Pierce.  His 
nomination  was  no  surprise  to  me,  though  to  the 
country  at  large  it  was  almost  a  shock.  He  had 
been  nowhere  seriously  considered. 

In  illustration  of  this  a  funny  incident  recurs  to 
me.  At  Nashville  the  night  of  the  nomination  a 
party  of  Whigs  and  Democrats  had  gathered  in 
front  of  the  principal  hotel  waiting  for  the  arrival 
of  the  news,  among  the  rest  Sam  Bugg  and  Chunky 
[30] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Towles,  two  local  gamblers,  both  undoubting 
Democrats.  At  length  Chunky  Towles,  worn  out, 
went  off  to  bed.  The  result  was  finally  flashed  over 
the  wires.  The  crowd  was  nonplused.  "Who  the 
hell  is  Franklin  Pierce?"  passed  from  lip  to  lip. 

Sam  Bugg  knew  his  political  catechism  well.  He 
proceeded  at  length  to  tell  all  about  Franklin 
Pierce,  ending  with  the  opinion  that  he  was  the 
man  wanted  and  would  be  elected  hands  down,  and 
he  had  a  thousand  dollars  to  bet  on  it. 

Then  he  slipped  away  to  tell  his  pal. 

"Wake  up,  Chunky,"  he  cried.  "We  got  a  candi- 
date— Gen.  Franklin  Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire." 

"Who  the " 

"Chunky,"  says  Sam.  "I  am  ashamed  of  your 
ignorance.  Gen.  Franklin  Pierce  is  the  son  of 
Gen.  Benjamin  Pierce,  of  Revolutionary  fame. 
He  has  served  in  both  houses  of  Congress.  He  de- 
clined a  seat  in  Polk's  Cabinet.  He  won  distinc- 
tion in  the  Mexican  War.  He  is  the  very  candidate 
we've  been  after." 

"In  that  case,"  says  Chunky,  "I'll  get  up." 
When  he  reappeared  Petway,  the  Whig  leader  of 
the  gathering,  who  had  been  deriding  the  conven- 

[31] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

tion,  the  candidate  and  all  things  else  Democratic, 
exclaimed : 

"Here  comes  Chunky  Towles.  He's  a  good 
Democrat;  and  I'll  bet  ten  to  one  he  never  heard 
of  Franklin  Pierce  in  his  life  before." 

Chunky  Towles  was  one  of  the  handsomest  men 
of  his  time.  His  strong  suit  was  his  unruffled  com- 
posure and  cool  self-control.  "Mr.  Petway,"  says 
he,  "you  would  lose  your  money,  and  I  won't  take 
advantage  of  any  man's  ignorance.  Bessides,  I 
never  gamble  on  a  certainty.  Gen.  Franklin 
Pierce,  sir,  is  a  son  of  Gen.  Benjamin  Pierce  of 
Revolutionary  memory.  He  served  in  both  houses 
of  Congress,  sir — refused  a  seat  in  Polk's  Cabinet, 
sir — won  distinction  in  the  Mexican  War,  sir.  He 
has  been  from  the  first  my  choice,  and  I've  money 
to  bet  on  his  election." 

Franklin  Pierce  had  an  only  son,  named  Benny, 
after  his  grandfather,  the  Revolutionary  hero.  He 
was  of  my  own  age.  I  was  planning  the  good  time 
we  were  going  to  have  in  the  White  House  when 
tidings  came  that  he  had  been  killed  in  a  railway 
accident.  It  was  a  grievous  blow,  from  which  the 
stricken  mother  never  recovered.  One  of  the  most 
vivid  memories  and  altogether  the  saddest  episode 
[32] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  my  childhood  is  that  a  few  weeks  later  I  was 
carried  up  to  the  Executive  Mansion,  which,  all 
formality  and  marble,  seemed  cold  enough  for  a 
mausoleum,  where  a  lady  in  black  took  me  in  her 
arms  and  convulsively  held  me  there,  weeping  as 
if  her  heart  would  break. 

v 

Sometimes  a  fancy,  rather  vague,  comes  to  me 
of  seeing  the  soldiers  go  off  to  the  Mexican  War 
and  of  making  flags  striped  with  pokeberry  juice 
— somehow  the  name  of  the  fruit  was  mingled  with 
that  of  the  President — though  a  visit  quite  a  year 
before  to  The  Hermitage,  which  adjoined  the  farm 
of  an  uncle,  to  see  General  Jackson  is  still  un- 
effaced.- 

I  remember  it  vividly.  The  old  hero  dandled  me 
in  his  arms,  saying  "So  this  is  Harvey's  boy,"  I 
looking  the  while  in  vain  for  the  "hickory,"  of 
which  I  had  heard  so  much. 

On  the  personal  side  history  owes  General  Jack- 
son reparation.  His  personality  needs  indeed  com- 
plete reconstruction  in  the  popular  mind,  which 
misconceives  him  a  rough  frontiersman  having  few 
or  none  of  the  social  graces.    In  point  of  fact  he 

[33] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

came  into  the  world  a  gentleman,  a  leader,  a  knight- 
errant  who  captivated  women  and  dominated  men. 

I  shared  when  a  young  man  the  common  belief 
about  him.  But  there  is  ample  proof  of  the  error 
of  this.  From  middle  age,  though  he  ever  liked  a 
horse  race,  he  was  a  regular  if  not  a  devout  church- 
man. He  did  not  swear  at  all,  "by  the  Eternal" 
or  any  other  oath.  When  he  reached  New  Orleans 
in  1814  to  take  command  of  the  army,  Governor 
Claiborne  gave  him  a  dinner ;  and  after  he  had  gone 
Mrs.  Claiborne,  who  knew  European  courts  and 
society  better  than  any  other  American  woman, 
said  to  her  husband:  "Call  that  man  a  backwoods- 
man?   He  is  the  finest  gentleman  I  ever  met!" 

There  is  another  witness — Mr.  Buchanan,  after- 
ward President — who  tells  how  he  took  a  distin- 
guished English  lady  to  the  White  House  when 
Old  Hickory  was  President;  how  he  went  up  to 
the  general's  private  apartment,  where  he  found 
him  in  a  ragged  robe-de-chambre,  smoking  his 
pipe;  how,  when  he  intimated  that  the  President 
might  before  coming  down  slick  himself  a  bit,  he 
received  the  half -laughing  rebuke:  "Buchanan,  I 
once  knew  a  man  in  Virginia  who  made  himself 
independently  rich  by  minding  his  own  business"; 
[34] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

how,  when  he  did  come  down,  he  was  en  regie;  and 
finally  how,  after  a  half  hour  of  delightful  talk,  the 
English  lady  as  they  regained  the  street  broke  forth 
with  enthusiasm,  using  almost  the  selfsame  words 
of  Mrs.  Claiborne:  "He  is  the  finest  gentleman  I 
ever  met  in  the  whole  course  of  my  life." 

VI 

The  Presidential  campaign  of  1848 — and  the 
concurrent  return  of  the  Mexican  soldiers — seems 
but  yesterday.  We  were  in  Nashville,  where  the 
camp  fires  of  the  two  parties  burned  fiercely  day 
and  night,  Tennessee  a  debatable,  even  a  pivotal 
state.  I  was  an  enthusiastic  politician  on  the  Cass 
and  Butler  side,  and  was  correspondingly  disap- 
pointed when  the  election  went  against  us  for  Tay- 
lor and  Fillmore,  though  a  little  mollified  when, 
on  his  way  to  Washington,  General  Taylor  grasp- 
ing his  old  comrade,  my  grandfather,  by  the  hand, 
called  him  "Billy,"  and  paternally  stroked  my 
curls. 

Though  the  next  winter  we  passed  in  Washing- 
ton I  never  saw  him  in  the  White  House.  He  died 
in  July,  1850,  and  was  succeeded  by  Millard  Fill- 
more.   It  is  common  to  speak  of  Old  Rough  and 

[35] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Ready  as  an  ignoramus.  I  don't  think  this.  He 
may  not  have  been  very  courtly,  but  he  was  a 
gentleman. 

Later  in  life  I  came  to  know  Millard  Fillmore 
well  and  to  esteem  him  highly.  Once  he  told  me 
that  Daniel  Webster  had  said  to  him:  "Fillmore, 
I  like  Clay — I  like  Clay  very  much — but  he  rides 
rough,  sir;  damned  rough!" 

I  was  fond  of  going  to  the  Capitol  and  of  play- 
ing amateur  page  in  the  House,  of  which  my  father 
had  been  a  member  and  where  he  had  many  friends, 
though  I  was  never  officially  a  page.  There  was  in 
particular  a  little  old  bald-headed  gentleman  who 
was  good  to  me  and  would  put  his  arm  about  me 
and  stroll  with  me  across  the  rotunda  to  the  Library 
of  Congress  and  get  me  books  to  read.  I  was  not 
so  young  as  not  to  know  that  he  was  an  ex-Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  to  realize  the  mean- 
ing of  it.  He  had  been  the  oldest  member  of  the 
House  when  my  father  was  the  youngest.  He  was 
John  Quincy  Adams.  By  chance  I  was  on  the 
floor  of  the  Llouse  when  he  fell  in  his  place,  and 
followed  the  excited  and  tearful  throng  when  they 
bore  him  into  the  Speaker's  Room,  kneeling  by  the 
[36] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

side  of  the  sofa  with  an  improvised  fan  and  crying 
as  if  my  heart  would  break. 

One  day  in  the  spring  of  1851  my  father  took  me 
to  a  little  hotel  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  near  the 
Capitol  and  into  a  stuffy  room,  where  a  snuffy  old 
man  wearing  an  ill-fitting  wig  was  busying  himself 
over  a  pile  of  documents.  He  turned  about  and 
was  very  hearty. 

"Aha,  you've  brought  the  boy,"  said  he. 

And  my  father  said:  "My  son,  you  wanted  to 
see  General  Cass,  and  here  he  is." 

My  enthusiasm  over  the  Cass  and  Butler  cam- 
paign had  not  subsided.  Inevitably  General  Cass 
was  to  me  the  greatest  of  heroes.  My  father  had 
been  and  always  remained  his  close  friend.  Later 
along  we  dwelt  together  at  Willard's  Hotel,  my 
mother  a  chaperon  for  Miss  Belle  Cass,  afterward 
Madame  Von  Limbourg,  and  I  came  into  familiar 
intercourse  with  the  family. 

The  general  made  me  something  of'  a  pet  and 
never  ceased  to  be  a  hero  to  me.  I  still  think  he 
was  one  of  the  foremost  statesmen  of  his  time  and 
treasure  a  birthday  present  he  made  me  when  I  was 
just  entering  my  teens. 

[37] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

The  hour  I  passed  with  him  that  afternoon  I  shall 
never  forget. 

As  we  were  about  taking  our  leave  my  father 
said:  "Well,  my  son,  you  have  seen  General  Cass; 
what  do  you  think  of  him?" 

And  the  general  patting  me  affectionately  on  the 
head  laughingly  said:  "He  thinks  he  has  seen  a 
pretty  good-looking  old  fogy — that  is  what  he 
thinks !" 

VII 

There  flourished  in  the  village  life  of  Washing- 
ton two  old  blokes — no  other  word  can  proprly  de- 
scribe them — Jack  Dade,  who  signed  himself  "the 
Honorable  John  W.  Dade,  of  Virginia;"  and 
Beau  Hickman,  who  hailed  from  nowhere  and  ac- 
quired the  pseudonym  through  sheer  impudence. 
In  one  way  and  another  they  lived  by  their  wits, 
the  one  all  dignity,  the  other  all  cheek.  Hickman 
fell  very  early  in  his  career  of  sponge  and  beggar, 
but  Dade  lived  long  and  died  in  office — indeed,  to- 
ward the  close  an  office  was  actually  created  for 
him. 

Dade  had  been  a  schoolmate  of  John  Tyler — so 
intimate  they  were  that  at  college  they  were  called 
"the  two  Jacks" — and  when  the  death  of  Harrison 
[38] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

made  Tyler  President,  the  "off  Jack,"  as  he  dub- 
bed himself,  went  up  to  the  White  House  and  said : 
k'Jack  Tyler,  you've  had  luck  and  I  haven't.  You 
must  do  something  for  me  and  do  it  quick.  I'm 
lhard  up  and  I  want  an  office." 

"You  old  reprobate,"  said  Tyler,  "what  office 
on  earth  do  you  think  you  are  fit  to  fill?" 

"Well,"  said  Dade,  "I  have  heard  them  talking 
round  here  of  a  place  they  call  a  sine-cu-ree — big 
pay  and  no  work — and  if  there  is  one  of  them  left 
'and  lying  about  loose  I  think  I  could  fill  it  to  a  T." 

"All  right,"  said  the  President  good  naturedly, 
"I'll  see  what  can  be  done.    Come  up  to-morrow." 

The  next  day  "Col.  John  W.  Dade,  of  Virginia," 
was  appointed  keeper  of  the  Federal  prison  of  the 
District  of  Columbia.  He  assumed  his  post  with 
empressement,  called  the  prisoners  before  him  and 
made  them  an  address. 

"Ladies  and  gentlemen,"  said  he;  "I  have  been 
chosen  by  my  friend,  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  as  superintendent  of  this  eleemosynary  in- 
stitution. It  is  my  intention  to  treat  you  all  as  a 
Virginia  gentleman  should  treat  a  body  of  Ameri- 
can ladies  and  gentlemen  gathered  here  from  all 
parts  of  our  beloved  Union,  and  I  shall  expect  the 
same  consideration  in  return.     Otherwise  I  will 

[39] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

turn  you  all  out  upon  the  cold  mercies  of  a  heart- 
less world  and  you  will  have  to  work  for  your  liv- 
ing." 

There  came  to  Congress  from  Alabama  a  roister- 
ing blade  by  the  name  of  McConnell.  He  was 
something  of  a  wit.  During  his  brief  sojourn  in 
the  national  capital  he  made  a  noisy  record  for  him- 
self as  an  all-round,  all-night  man  about  town,  a 
dare-devil  and  a  spendthrift.  His  first  encounter 
with  Col.  John  W.  Dade,  of  Virginia,  used  to  be 
one  of  the  standard  local  jokes.  Colonel  Dade  was 
seated  in  the  barroom  of  Brown's  Hotel  early  one 
morning,  waiting  for  someone  to  come  in  and  invite 
him  to  drink. 

Presently  McConnell  arrived.  It  was  his  custom 
when  he  entered  a  saloon  to  ask  the  entire  roomful, 
no  matter  how  many,  "to  come  up  and  licker,"  and, 
of  course,  he  invited  the  solitary  stranger. 

When  the  glasses  were  filled  Dade  pompously 
said:  "With  whom  have  I  the  honor  of  drinking?" 

"My   name,"    answered   McConnell,    "is    Felix. 
Grundy  McConnell,  begad!     I  am  a  member  of 
Congress  from  Alabama.    My  mother  is  a  justice 
of  the  peace,  my  aunt  keeps  a  livery  stable,  and  my 
[40] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

grandmother  commanded  a  company  in  the  Revolu- 
tion and  fit  the  British,  gol  darn  their  souls!" 

Dade  pushed  his  glass  aside. 

"Sir,"  said  he,  "I  am  a  man  of  high  aspirations 
and  peregrinations  and  can  have  nothing  to  do  with 
such  low-down  scopangers  as  yourself.  Good  morn- 
ing, sir!" 

It  may  be  presumed  that  both  spoke  in  jest,  be- 
cause they  became  inseparable  companions  and  the 
best  of  friends. 

McConnell  had  a  tragic  ending.  In  James  K. 
Polk's  diary  I  find  two  entries  under  the  dates, 
respectively,  of  September  8  and  September  10, 
1846.  The  first  of  these  reads  as  follows:  "Hon. 
Felix  G.  McConnell,  a  representative  in  Congress 
from  Alabama  called.  He  looked  very  badly  and 
as  though  he  had  just  recovered  from  a  fit  of  in- 
toxication. He  was  sober,  but  was  pale,  his  counte- 
nance haggard  and  his  system  nervous.  He  ap- 
plied to  me  to  borrow  one  hundred  dollars  and  said 
he  would  return  it  to  me  in  ten  days. 

"Though  I  had  no  idea  that  he  would  do  so  I 
had  a  sympathy  for  him  even  in  his  dissipation.  I 
had  known  him  in  his  youth  and  had  not  the  moral 
courage  to  refuse.     I  gave  him  the  one  hundred 

[41] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

dollars  in  gold  and  took  his  note.  His  hand  was 
so  tremulous  that  he  could  scarcely  write  his  name 
to  the  note  legibly.  I  think  it  probable  that  he  will 
never  pay  me.  He  informed  me  he  was  detained 
at  Washington  attending  to  some  business  in  the 
Indian  Office.  I  supposed  he  had  returned  home 
at  the  adjournment  of  Congress  until  he  called 
to-day.  I  doubt  whether  he  has  any  business  in 
Washington,  but  fear  he  has  been  detained  by  dis- 
sipation." 

The  second  of  Mr.  Polk's  entries  is  a  corollary 
;of  the  first  and  reads:  "About  dark  this  evening  I 
learned  from  Mr.  Voorhies,  who  is  acting  as  my 
private  secretary  during  the  absence  of  J.  Knox 
Walker,  that  Hon.  Felix  G.  McConnell,  a  repre- 
sentative in  Congress  from  the  state  of  Alabama, 
had  committed  suicide  this  afternoon  at  the  St. 
Charles  Hotel,  where  he  boarded.  On  Tuesday 
last  Mr.  McConnell  called  on  me  and  I  loaned  him 
one  hundred  dollars.  [See  this  diary  of  that  day.] 
I  learn  that  but  a  short  time  before  the  horrid  deed 
was  committed  he  was  in  the  barroom  of  the  St. 
Charles  Hotel  handling  gold  pieces  and  stating  that 
he  had  received  them  from  me,  and  that  he  loaned 
thirty-five  dollars  of  them  to  the  barkeeper,  that 
[42] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

shortly  afterward  he  had  attempted  to  write  some- 
thing, but  what  I  have  not  learned,  but  he  had  not 
written  much  when  he  said  he  would  go  to  his 
room. 

"In  the  course  of  the  morning  I  learn  he  went 
into  the  city  and  paid  a  hackman  a  small  amount 
which  he  owed  him.  He  had  locked  his  room  door, 
and  when  found  he  was  stretched  out  on  his  back 
with  his  hands  extended,  weltering  in  his  blood.  He 
had  three  wounds  in  the  abdomen  and  his  throat 
was  cut.  A  hawkbill  knife  was  found  near  him. 
A  jury  of  inquest  was  held  and  found  a  verdict  that 
he  had  destroyed  himself.  It  was  a  melancholy  in- 
stance of  the  effects  of  intemperance.  Mr.  Mc- 
Connell  when  a  youth  resided  at  Fayetteville  in 
my  congressional  district.  Shortly  after  he  grew 
up  to  manhood  he  was  at  my  instance  appointed 
postmaster  of  that  town.  He  was  a  true  Democrat 
and  a  sincere  friend  of  mine. 

"His  family  in  Tennessee  are  highly  respectable 
and  quite  numerous.  The  information  as  to  the 
manner  and  particulars  of  his  death  I  learned  from 
Mr.  Voorhies,  who  reported  it  to  me  as  he  had  heard 
it  in  the  streets.     Mr.  McConnell  removed  from 

[43] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Tennessee  to  Alabama  some  years  ago,  and  I  learn 
he  has  left  a  wife  and  three  or  four  children." 

Poor  Felix  Grundy  McConnell!  At  a  school  in 
Tennessee  he  was  a  roommate  of  my  father,  who 
related  that  one  night  Felix  awakened  with  a 
scream  from  a  bad  dream  he  had,  the  dream  being 
that  he  had  cut  his  own  throat. 

"Old  Jack  Dade,"  as  he  was  always  called,  lived 
on,  from  hand  to  mouth,  I  dare  say — for  he  lost  his 
job  as  keeper  of  the  district  prison — yet  never 
wholly  out-at-heel,  scrupulously  neat  in  his  person 
no  matter  how  seedy  the  attire.  On  the  completion 
of  the  new  wings  of  the  Capitol  and  the  removal 
of  the  House  to  its  more  commodious  quarters  he 
was  made  custodian  of  the  old  Hall  of  Representa- 
tives, a  post  he  held  until  he  died. 

VIII 

Between  the  idiot  and  the  man  of  sense,  the 
lunatic  and  the  man  of  genius,  there  are  degrees — 
streaks — of  idiocy  and  lunacy.  How  many  ex- 
pectant politicians  elected  to  Congress  have  entered 
Washington  all  hope,  eager  to  dare  and  do,  to  come 
away  broken  in  health,  fame  and  fortune,  happy 
to  get  back  home — sometimes  unable  to  get  away, 
[44] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  linger  on  in  obscurity  and  poverty  to  a  squalid 
and  wretched  old  age. 

I  have  lived  long  enough  to  have  known  many 
such:  Senators  who  have  filled  the  galleries  when 
they  rose  to  speak ;  House  heroes  living  while  they 
could  on  borrowed  money,  then  hanging  about  the 
hotels  begging  for  money  to  buy  drink. 

There  was  a  famous  statesman  and  orator  who 
came  to  this  at  last,  of  whom  the  typical  and  char- 
acteristic story  was  told  that  the  holder  of  a  claim 
against  the  Government,  who  dared  not  approach 
so  great  a  man  with  so  much  as  the  intimation  of  a 
bribe,  undertook  by  argument  to  interest  him  in  the 
merit  of  the  case. 

The  great  man  listened  and  replied:  "I  have 
noticed  you  scattering  your  means  round  here 
pretty  freely  but  you  haven't  said  'turkey'  to  me." 

Surprised  but  glad  and  unabashed  the  claimant 
said  "I  was  coming  to  that,"  produced  a  thousand- 
dollar  bank  roll  and  entered  into  an  understand- 
ing as  to  what  was  to  be  done  next  day,  when  the 
bill  was  due  on  the  calendar. 

The  great  man  took  the  money,  repaired  to  a 
gambling  house,  had  an  extraordinary  run  of  luck, 
won  heavily,  and  playing  all  night,  forgetting  about 

[45] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

his  engagement,  went  to  bed  at  daylight,  not  ap- 
pearing in  the  House  at  all.  The  bill  was  called, 
and  there  being  nobody  to  represent  it,  under  the 
rule  it  went  over  and  to  the  bottom  of  the  calendar, 
killed  for  that  session  at  least. 

The  day  after  the  claimant  met  his  recreant  at- 
torney on  the  avenue  face  to  face  and  took  him  to 
task  for  his  delinquency. 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  the  great  man,  "you  are  the  little 
rascal  who  tried  to  bribe  me  the  other  day.  Here 
is  your  dirty  money.  Take  it  and  be  off  with  you. 
I  was  just  seeing  how  far  you  would  go." 

The  comment  made  by  those  who  best  knew  the 
great  man  was  that  if  instead  of  winning  in  the 
gambling  house  he  had  lost  he  would  have  been  up 
betimes  at  his  place  in  the  House,  and  doing  his 
utmost  to  pass  the  claimant's  bill  and  obtain  a  sec- 
ond fee. 

Another  memory  of  those  days  has  to  do  with 
music.  This  was  the  coming  of  Jenny  Lind  to 
America.  It  seemed  an  event.  When  she  reached 
Washington  Mr.  Rarnum  asked  at  the  office  of  my 
father's  newspaper  for  a  smart  lad  to  sell  the  pro- 
grams of  the  concert — a  new  thing  in  artistic 
showmanry.  "I  don't  want  a  paper  carrier,  or  a 
[46] 


HENRY   CLAY PAINTED  AT  ASHLAND  BY   DODGE      TOR  THE    HON. 

ANDREW    EWING    OF    TENNESSEE THE    ORIGINAL    HANGS    IN 

MR.    WATTERSON'S    LIBRARY   AT   "MANSFIELD" 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

newsboy,"  said  he,  "but  a  young  gentleman,  three 
or  four  young  gentlemen."  I  was  sent  to  him.  We 
readily  agreed  upon  the  commission  to  be  received 
— five  cents  on  each  twenty-five  cent  program — 
the  oldest  of  old  men  do  not  forget  such  transac- 
tions. But,  as  an  extra  percentage  for  "organizing 
the  force,"  I  demanded  a  concert  seat.  Choice 
seats  were  going  at  a  fabulous  figure  and  Barnum 
at  first  demurred.  But  I  told  him  I  was  a  musical 
student,  stood  my  ground,  and,  perhaps  seeing 
something  unusual  in  the  eager  spirit  of  a  little  boy, 
he  gave  in  and  the  bargain  was  struck. 

Two  of  my  pals  became  my  assistants.  But  my 
sales  beat  both  of  them  hollow.  Before  the  concert 
began  I  had  sold  my  programs  and  was  in  my  seat. 
I  recall  that  my  money  profit  was  something  over 
five  dollars. 

The  bell-like  tones  of  the  Jenny  Lind  voice  in 
"Home,  Sweet  Home,"  and  "The  Last  Rose  of 
Summer"  still  come  back  to  me,  but  too  long 
after  for  me  to  make,  or  imagine,  comparisons  be- 
tween it  and  the  vocalism  of  Grisi,  Sontag  and 
Parepa-Rosa. 

Meeting  Mr.  Barnum  at  Madison  Square 
Garden  in  New  ITork,  when  he  was  running  one 

[47] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  his  entertainments  there,  I  told  him  the  story, 
and  we  had  a  hearty  laugh,  both  of  us  very  much 
pleased,  he  very  much  surprised  to  find  in  me  a 
former  employee. 

One  of  my  earliest  yearnings  was  for  a  home. 
I  cannot  recall  the  time  when  I  was  not  sick  and 
tired  of  our  migrations  between  Washington  City 
and  the  two  grand-paternal  homesteads  in  Ten- 
nessee. The  travel  counted  for  much  of  my  aver- 
sion to  the  nomadic  life  we  led.  The  stage- 
coach is  happier  in  the  contemplation  than  in  the 
actuality.  Even  when  the  railways  arrived  there 
were  no  sleeping  cars,  the  time  of  transit  three  or 
four  days  and  nights.  In  the  earlier  journeys  it 
had  been  ten  or  twelve  days. 


[48]! 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 

SLAVERY  THE  TROUBLE-MAKER — BREAK  UP  OF  THE 

WHIG  PARTY  AND  RISE  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN 

THE    SICKLES    TRAGEDY BROOKS    AND    SUMNER 

— LIFE  AT  WASHINGTON  IN  THE  FIFTIES 


WHETHER  the  War  of  Sections  — as  it 
should  be  called,  because,  except  in  East- 
ern Tennessee  and  in  three  of  the  Border  States, 
Maryland,  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  it  was  nowise  a 
civil  war — could  have  been  averted  must  ever  re- 
main a  question  of  useless  speculation.  In  recogniz- 
ing the  institution  of  African  slavery,  with  no  pro- 
vision for  its  ultimate  removal,  the  Federal  Union 
set  out  embodying  the  seeds  of  certain  trouble.  The 
wiser  heads  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  per- 
ceived this  plainly  enough;  its  dissonance  to  the 
logic  of  their  movement ;  on  the  sentimental  side  its 
repugnancy;  on  the  practical  side  its  doubtful 
economy;  and  but  for  the  tobacco  growers  and  the 

[49] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

cotton  planters  it  had  gone  by  the  board.  The 
North  soon  found  slave  labor  unprofitable  and  rid 
itself  of  slavery.  Thus,  restricted  to  the  South,  it 
came  to  represent  in  the  Southern  mind  a  "right" 
which  the  South  was  bound  to  defend. 

Mr.  Slidell  told  me  in  Paris  that  Louis  Napoleon 
had  once  said  to  him  in  answer  to  his  urgency  for 
the  recognition  of  the  Southern  Confederacy:  "I 
have  talked  the  matter  over  with  Lord  Palmerston 
and  we  are  both  of  the  opinion  that  as  long  as 
African  slavery  exists  at  the  South,  France  and 
England  cannot  recognize  the  Confederacy.  They 
do  not  demand  its  instant  abolition.  But  if  you 
put  it  in  course  of  abatement  and  final  abolishment 
through  a  term  of  years — I  do  not  care  how  many 
— we  can  intervene  to  some  purpose.  As  matters 
stand  we  dare  not  go  before  a  European  congress 
with  such  a  proposition." 

Mr.  Slidell  passed  it  up  to  Richmond.  Mr. 
Davis  passed  it  on  to  the  generals  in  the  field.  The 
response  he  received  on  every  hand  was  the  state- 
ment that  it  would  disorganize  and  disband  the 
Confederate  Armies.  Yet  we  are  told,  and  it  is 
doubtless  true,  that  scarcely  one  Confederate  sol- 
dier in  ten  actually  owned  a  slave. 
[50] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Thus  do  imaginings  become  theories,  and  theories 
resolve  themselves  into  claims;  and  interests,  how- 
ever mistaken,  rise  to  the  dignity  of  prerogatives. 

II 

The  fathers  had  rather  a  hazy  view  of  the  future. 

I  was  witness  to  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  oldj 

H 

Whig  Party  and  the  rise  of  the  Republican  Party. 
There  was  a  brief  lull  in  sectional  excitement  after 
the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850,  but  the  over- 
whelming defeat  of  the  Whigs  in  1852  and  the 
dominancy  of  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  in  the  cabinet  of 
Mr.  Pierce  brought  the  agitation  back  again.  Mr. 
Davis  was  a  follower  of  Mr.  Calhoun — though  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  Mr.  Calhoun  would  ever 
have  been  willing  to  go  to  the  length  of  secession 
— and  Mr.  Pierce  being  by  temperament  a  South- 
erner as  well  as  in  opinions  a  pro-slavery  Demo- 
crat, his  Administration  fell  under  the  spell  of  the 
ultra  Southern  wing  of  the  party.  The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill  was  originaly  harmless  enough,  but 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which  on 
Mr.  Davis'  insistence  was  made  a  part  of  it,  let 
slip  the  dogs  of  war. 

In  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  found  an  able  and 

[51] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

pliant  instrument.  Like  Clay,  Webster  and  Cal- 
houn before  him,  Judge  Douglas  had  the  presi- 
dential bee  in  his  bonnet.  He  thought  the  South 
would,  as  it  could,  nominate  and  elect  him  Presi- 
dent. 

Personally  he  was  a  most  lovable  man — rather 
too  convivial — and  for  a  while  in  1852  it  looked  as 
though  he  might  be  the  Democratic  nominee.  His 
candidacy  was  premature,  his  backers  overconfident 
and  indiscreet. 

"I  like  Douglas  and  am  for  him,"  said  Buck 
Stone,  a  member  of  Congress  and  delegate  to  the 
National  Democratic  Convention  from  Kentucky, 
"though  I  consider  him  a  good  deal  of  a  damn 
fool."  Pressed  for  a  reason  he  continued:  "Why, 
think  of  a  man  wanting  to  be  President  at  forty 
years  of  age,  and  obliged  to  behave  himself  for  the 
rest  of  his  life!  I  wouldn't  take  the  job  on  any 
such  terms." 

The  proposed  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise opened  up  the  slavery  debate  anew  and 
gave  it  increased  vitality.  Hell  literally  broke 
loose  among  the  political  elements.  The  issues 
which  had  divided  Whigs  and  Democrats  went  to 
the  rear,  while  this  one  paramount  issue  took 
[52] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

possession  of  the  stage.  It  was  welcomed  by  the 
extremists  of  both  sections,  a  very  godsend  to  the 
beaten  politicians  led  by  Mr.  Seward.  Rampant 
sectionalism  was  at  first  kept  a  little  in  the  back- 
ground. There  were  on  either  side  concealments 
and  reserves.  Many  patriotic  men  put  the  Union 
above  slavery  or  antislavery.  But  the  two  sets  of 
rival  extremists  had  their  will  at  last,  and  in  seven 
short  years  deepened  and  embittered  the  conten- 
tion to  the  degree  that  disunion  and  war  seemed, 
certainly  proved,  the  only  way  out  of  it. 

The  extravagance  of  the  debates  of  those  years 
amazes  the  modern  reader.  Occasionally  when  I 
have  occasion  to  recur  to  them  I  am  myself  non- 
plussed, for  they  did  not  sound  so  terrible  at  the 
time.  My  father  was  a  leader  of  the  Union  wing  j 
of  the  Democratic  Party — headed  in  1860  the 
Douglas  presidential  ticket  in  Tennessee — and  re- 
mained a  Unionist  during  the  War  of  Sections. 
He  broke  away  from  Pierce  and  retired  from  the 
editorship  of  the  Washiongton  Union  upon  the 
issue  of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  to 
which  he  was  opposed,  refusing  the  appointment 
of  Governor  of  Oregon,  with  which  the  President 
sought  to  placate  him,  though  it  meant  his  return 

[53] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  in  a  year  or  two, 
when  he  and  Oregon's  delegate  in  Congress,  Gen. 
Joseph  Lane — the  Lane  of  the  Breckenridge  and 
Lane  ticket  of  1860 — had  brought  the  territory  of 
Oregon  in  as  a  state. 

I  have  often  thought  just  where  I  would  have 
come  in  and  what  might  have  happened  to  me  if  he 
had  accepted  the  appointment  and  I  had  grown  to 
manhood  on  the  Pacific  Coast.     As  it  was  I  at- 
tended a  school  in  Philadelphia  —  the  Protestant 
I  Episcopal  Academy — came  home  to  Tennessee  in 
1856,  and  after  a  season  with  private  tutors  found 
myself  back  in  the  national  capital  in  1858. 
r1t  was  then  that  I  began  to  nurse  some  ambitions 
f  my  own.    I  was  going  to  be  a  great  man  of  let- 
ters.   I  was  going  to  write  histories  and  dramas  and 
romances  and  poetry.     But  as  I  had  set  up  for 
myself  I  felt  in  honor  bound  meanwhile  to  earn 

my  own  living. 

in 

take  it  that  the  early  steps  of  every  man  to 
et  a  footing  may  be  of  interest  when  fairly  told. 
I  sought  work  in  New  York  with  indifferent  suc- 
cess.    Mr.  Raymond  of  the  Times,  hearing  me 
play  the  piano  at  which  from  childhood  I  had  re- 
[54] 


/l 


'  MARSE  HENRY" 

ceived  careful  instruction,  gave  me  a  job  as  "musi-  , 
cal  critic"  during  the  absence  of  Mr.  Seymour,  the 
regular  critic.  I  must  have  done  my  work  ac- 
ceptably, since  I  was  not  fired.  It  included  a  re- 
port of  the  debut  of  my  boy-and-girl  companion, 
Adelina  Patti,  when  she  made  her  first  appearance 
in  opera  at  the  Academy  of  Music.  But,  as  the 
saying  is,  I  did  not  "catch  on."  There  might  be  a 
more  promising  opening  in  Washington,  and 
thither  I  repaired. 

The  Daily  States  had  been  established  there  by 
John  P.  Heiss,  who  with  Thomas  Ritchie  had 
years  before  established  the  Washington  Union. 
Roger  A.  Pryor  was  its  nominal  editor.  But  he 
soon  took  himself  home  to  his  beloved  Virginia  and 
came  to  Congress,  and  the  editorial  writing  on  the 
Slates  was  being  done  by  Col.  A.  Dudley  Mann, 
later  along  Confederate  commissioner  to  France, 
preceding  Mr.  Slidell. 

Colonel  Mann  wished  to  work  incognito.  I  was 
taken  on  as  a  kind  of  go-between  and,  as  I  may  say, 
figurehead,  on  the  strength  of  being  my  father's 
son  and  a  very  self-confident  young  gentleman, 
and  began  to  get  my  newspaper  education  in  point  / 
of  fact  as  a  kind  of  fetch-and-carry  for  Major/ 

[55]    ' 


"MARSE  HENRY'5 

Heiss.  He  was  a  practical  newspaper  man  who 
had  started  the  Union  at  Nashville  as  well  as  the 
Union  at  Washington  and  the  Crescent — maybe  it 

(was  the  Delta — at  New  Orleans;  and  for  the  rudi- 
ments of  newspaper  work  I  could  scarcely  have  had 
a  better  teacher. 

Back  of  Colonel  Mann  as  a  leader  writer  on  the 
States  was  a  remarkable  woman.  She  was  Mrs. 
Jane  Casneau,  the  wife  of  Gen.  George  Casneau, 
of  Texas,  who  had  a  claim  before  Congress. 
Though  she  was  unknown  to  fame,  Thomas  A. 
Benton  used  to  say  that  she  had  more  to  do  with 
making  and  ending  the  Mexican  War  than  any- 
body else. 

Somewhere  in  the  early  thirties  she  had  gone 
with  her  newly  wedded  husband,  an  adventurous 
Yankee  by  the  name  of  Storm,  to  the  Rio  Grande 
and  started  a  settlement  they  called  Eagle  Pass. 
Storm  died,  the  Texas  outbreak  began,  and  the 
young  widow  was  driven  back  to  San  Antonio, 
where  she  met  and  married  Casneau,  one  of  Hous- 
ton's lieutenants,  like  herself  a  New  Yorker.  She 
was  sent  by  Polk  with  Pillow  and  Trist  to  the  City 
of  Mexico  and  actually  wrote  the  final  treaty.  It 
was  she  who  dubbed  William  Walker  "the  little 
[56] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

gray-eyed  man  of  destiny,"  and  put  the  nickname 
"Old  Fuss  and  Feathers"  on  General  Scott,  whom 
she  heartily  disliked. 

A  braver,  more  intellectual  woman  never  lived. 
She  must  have  been  a  beauty  in  her  youth ;  was  still 
very  comely  at  fifty;  but  a  born  insurrecto  and  a 
terror  with  her  pen.  God  made  and  equipped  her 
for  a  filibuster.  She  possessed  infinite  knowledge 
of  Spanish- American  affairs,  looked  like  a  Span- 
ish woman,  and  wrote  and  spoke  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage fluently.  Her  obsession  was  the  bringing  of 
Central  America  into  the  Federal  Union.  But 
she  was  not  without  literary  aspirations  and  had 
some  literary  friends.  Among  these  was  Mrs. 
South  worth,  the  novelist,  who  had  a  lovely  home  in 
Georgetown,  and,  whatever  may  be  said  of  her 
works  and  articles,  was  a  lovely  woman.  She  used 
to  take  me  to  visit  this  lady.  With  Major  Heissj 
she  divided  my  newspaper  education,  her  part  of  ii 
being  the  writing  part.  Whatever  I  may  have  at- 
tained in  that  line  I  largely  owe  to  her.  She  took 
great  pains  with  me  and  mothered  me  in  the  ab- 
sence of  my  own  mother,  who  had  long  been  her 
very  dear  friend.  To  get  rid  of  her,  or  rather  her 
pen,  Mr.  Buchanan  gave  General  Casneau,  when 

[57] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  Douglas  schism  was  breaking  out,  a  Central 
American  mission,  and  she  and  he  were  lost  by 
shipwreck  on  their  way  to  this  post,  somewhere  in 
Caribbean  waters. 

My  immediate  yokemate  on  the  States  was  John 
Savage,  "Jack,"  as  he  was  commonly  called;  a 
brilliant  Irishman,  who  with  Devin  Reilley  and 
John  Mitchel  and  Thomas  Francis  Meagher,  his 
intimates,  and  Joseph  Brennan,  his  brother-in-law, 
made  a  pretty  good  Irishman  of  me.  They  were 
'48  men,  with  literary  gifts  of  one  sort  and  an- 
other, who  certainly  helped  me  along  with  my  writ- 
ing, but,  as  matters  fell  out,  did  not  go  far  enough 
to  influence  my  character,  for  they  were  a  wild  lot, 
full  of  taking  enthusiasm  and  juvenile  decrepi- 
tude of  judgment,  ripe  for  adventures  and  ready 
for  any  enterprise  that  promised  fun  and  fighting. 

Between  John  Savage  and  Mrs.  Casneau  I  had 
the  constant  spur  of  commendation  and  assistance 
as  well  as  affection.  I  passed  all  my  spare  time  in 
the  Library  of  Congress  and  knew  its  arrange- 
ments at  least  as  well  as  Mr.  Meehan,  the  librarian, 
and  Robert  Kearon,  the  assistant,  much  to  the  sur- 
prise of  Mr.  Spofford,  who  in  1861  succeeded  Mr. 
Meehan  as  librarian. 
[58] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Not  long  after  my  return  to  Washington  Col. 
John  W.  Forney  picked  me  up,  and  I  was  em- 
ployed in  addition  to  my  not  very  arduous  duties 
on  the  States  to  write  occasional  letters  from  Wash- 
ington to  the  Philadelphia  Press.     Good  fortune 
like  ill  fortune  rarely  comes  singly.    Without  any- 
body's interposition  I  was  appointed  to  a  clerkship 
a  real  "sinecure,"  in  the  Interior  Department  bj 
Jacob  Thompson,  the  secretary,  my  father's  olc 
colleague   in   Congress.     When   the   troubles   of 
1860-61  rose  I  was  literally  doing  "a  land-office 
business,"  with  money  galore  and  to  spare.    Some- 
how, I  don't  know  how,  I  contrived  to  spend  it, 
though  I  had  no  vices,  and  worked  like  a  hired  man 
upon  my  literary  hopes  and  newspaper  obligations. 

Life  in  Washington  under  these  conditions  was 
delightful.     I  did  not  know  how  my  heart  was 
wrapped  up  in  it  until  I  had  to  part  from  it.    My 
father  stood  high  in  public  esteem.     My  mother 
was  a  leader  in  society.     All  doors  were  open  to] 
me.    I  had  many  friends.  Going  back  to  Tennessee!  y  . 
in  the  midsummer  of  1861,  via  Pittsburgh  and  Cin4/   • 
cinnati,  there  happened  a  railway  break  and  a  halt* 
of  several  hours  at  a  village  on  the  Ohio.    I  strolled 
down  to  the  river  and  sat  myself  upon  the  brink, 

[59] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

almost  despairing — nigh  heartbroken — when  I  be- 
gan to  feel  an  irresistible  fascination  about  the 
swift -flowing  stream.  I  leaped  to  my  feet  and  ran 
away;  and  that  is  the  only  thought  of  suicide  that 

I  can  recall. 

rv 

Mrs.  Clay,  of  Alabama,  in  her  "Belle  of  the 
Fifties"  has  given  a  graphic  picture  of  life  in  the 
national  capital  during  the  administrations  of  Pierce 
and  Buchanan.  The  South  was  very  much  in  the 
saddle.  Pierce,  as  I  have  said,  was  Southern  in 
temperament,  and  Buchanan,  who  to  those  he  did 
not  like  or  approve  had,  as  Arnold  Harris  said,  "a 
winning  way  of  making  himself  hateful,"  was  an 
aristocrat  under  Southern  and  feminine  influence. 

I  was  fond  of  Mr.  Pierce,  but  I  could  never  en- 
dure Mr.  Buchanan.  His  very  voice  gave  offense 
to  me.  Directed  by  a  periodical  publication  to 
make  a  sketch  of  him  to  accompany  an  engraving, 
I  did  my  best  on  it. 

Jacob  Thompson,  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
said  to  me:  "Now,  Henry,  here's  your  chance  for 
a  foreign  appointment." 

I  now  know  that  my  writing  was  clumsy  enough 
and  my  attempt  to  play  the  courtier  clumsier  still. 
[60] 


\ 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Nevertheless,  as  a  friend  of  my  father  and  mother 
"Old  Buck"  might  have  been  a  little  more  con- 
siderate than  he  was  with  a  lad  trying  to  please  and 
do  him  honor.  I  came  away  from  the  White  House 
my  amour  propre  wounded,  and  though  I  had  not 
far  to  go  went  straight  into  the  Douglas  camp. 

Taking  nearly  sixty  years  to  think  it  over  I  have 
reached  the  conclusion  that  Mr.  Buchanan  was  the 
victim  of  both  personal  and  historic  injustice.  With 
secession  in  sight  his  one  aim  was  to  get  out  of  the 
White  House  before  the  scrap  began.  He  was  of 
course  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  all  the  secession 
leaders,  especially  Mr.  Slidell,  of  Louisiana,  like 
himself  a  Northerner  by  birth,  and  Mr.  Mason,  a 
thick-skulled,  ruffle-shirted  Virginian.  It  was  not 
in  him  or  in  Mr.  Pierce,  with  their  antecedents  and 
associations,  to  be  uncompromising  Federalists. 
There  was  no  clear  law  to  go  on.  Moderate  men 
were  in  a  muck  of  doubt  just  what  to  do.  With 
Horace  Greeley  Mr.  Buchanan  was  ready  to  say 
"Let  the  erring  sisters  go."  This  indeed  was  the 
extent  of  Mr.  Pierce's  pacifism  during  the  War  of 
Sections. 

A  new  party  risen  upon  the  remains  of  the  Whig 
Party — the  Republican  Party — was  at  the  door 

[61] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  coming  into  power.  Lifelong  pro-slavery 
Democrats  could  not  look  on  with  equanimity,  still 
less  with  complaisance,  and  doubtless  Pierce  and 
Buchanan  to  the  end  of  their  days  thought  less  of 
the  Republicans  than  of  the  Confederates.  As  a 
consequence  Republican  writers  have  given  quarter 
to  neither  of  them. 

It  will  not  do  to  go  too  deeply  into  the  account 
of  those  days.  The  times  were  out  of  joint.  I 
knew  of  two  Confederate  generals  who  first  tried 
for  commissions  in  the  Union  Army;  gallant  and 
good  fellows  too ;  but  they  are  both  dead  and  their 
secret  shall  die  with  me.  I  knew  likewise  a  famous 
Union  general  who  was  about  to  resign  his  com- 
mission in  the  army  to  go  with  the  South  but  was 
prevented  by  his  wife,  a  Northern  woman,  who  had 
obtained  of  Mr.  Lincoln  a  brigadier's  commission. 


In  1858  a  wonderful  affair  came  to  pass.  It  was 
Mrs.  Senator  Gwin's  fancy  dress  ba1!,  written  of, 
talked  of,  far  and  wide.  I  did  not  get  to  attend 
this.  My  costume  was  prepared — a  Spanish 
cavalier,  Mrs.  Casneau's  doing — when  I  fell  ill  and 
had  with  bitter  disappointment  to  read  about  it 
[62] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

next  day  in  the  papers.  I  was  living  at  Willard's 
Hotel,  and  one  of  my  volunteer  nurses  was  Mrs. 
Daniel  E.  Sickles,  a  pretty  young  thing  who  was 
soon  to  become  the  victim  of  a  murder  and  world 
scandal.  Her  husband  was  a  member  of  the  House 
from  New  York,  and  during  his  frequent  absences 
I  used  to  take  her  to  dinner.  Mr.  Sickles  had  been 
Mr.  Buchanan's  Secretary  of  Legation  in  London, 
and  both  she  and  he  were  at  home  in  the  White 
House. 

She  was  an  innocent  child.  She  never  knew  what 
she  was  doing,  and  when  a  year  later  Sickles,  hav- 
ing killed  her  seducer — a  handsome,  unscrupulous 
fellow  who  understood  how  to  take  advantage  of 
a  husband's  neglect — forgave  her  and  brought  her 
home  in  the  face  of  much  obloquy,  in  my  heart  of 
hearts  I  did  homage  to  his  courage  and  generosity, 
for  she  was  then  as  he  and  I  both  knew  a  dying 
woman.  She  did  die  but  a  few  months  later.  He 
was  by  no  means  a  politician  after  my  fancy  or 
approval,  but  to  the  end  of  his  days  I  was  his  friend 
and  could  never  bring  myself  to  join  in  the  re- 
peated public  outcries  against  him. 

Early  in  the  fifties  Willard's  Hotel  became  a 
kind  of  headquarters  for  the  two  political  extremes. 

[63] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

During  a  long  time  their  social  intercourse  was  un- 
restrained— often  joyous.  They  were  too  far 
apart,  figuratively  speaking,  to  come  to  blows. 
Truth  to  say,  their  aims  were  after  all  not  so  far 
apart.  They  played  to  one  another's  lead.  Many 
a  time  have  I  seen  Keitt,  of  South  Carolina,  and 
Burlingame,  of  Massachusetts,  hobnob  in  the  live- 
liest manner  and  most  public  places. 

It  is  certainly  true  that  Brooks  was  not  him- 
self when  he  attacked  Sumner.  The  Northern 
radicals  were  wont  to  say,  "Let  the  South  go,"  the 
more  profane  among  them  interjecting  "to  hell!" 
The  Secessionists  liked  to  prod  the  New  Engend- 
ers with  what  the  South  was  going  to  do  when  they 
got  to  Boston.  None  of  them  really  meant  it — 
not  even  Toombs  when  he  talked  about  calling  the 
muster  roll  of  his  slaves  beneath  Bunker  Hill 
Monument ;  nor  Hammond,  the  son  of  a  New  Eng- 
land schoolmaster,  when  he  spoke  of  the  "mudsills 
of  the  North,"  meaning  to  illustrate  what  he  was 
saying  by  the  underpinning  of  a  house  built  on 
marshy  ground,  and  not  the  Northern  work  people. 

Toombs,  who  was  a  rich  man,  not  quite  impover- 
ished by  the  war,  banished  himself  in  Europe  for  a 
number  of  years.  At  length  he  came  home,  and 
[64] 


W.   P.    HARDEE,   I.IEUTEXANT  GENERAL   C.   S.  A. 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

passing  the  White  House  at  Washington  he  called 
and  sent  his  card  to  the  President.  General  Grant, 
the  most  genial  and  generous  of  men,  had  him  come 
directly  up. 

"Mr.  President,"  said  Toombs,  "in  my  European 
migrations  I  have  made  it  a  rule  when  arriving  in 
a  city  to  call  first  and  pay  my  respects  to  the  Chief 
of  Police." 

The  result  was  a  most  agreeable  hour  and  an  in- 
vitation to  dinner.  Not  long  after  this  at  the  hos- 
pitable board  of  a  Confederate  general,  then  an 
American  senator,  Toombs  began  to  prod  Lamar 
about  his  speech  in  the  House  upon  the  occasion  of 
the  death  of  Charles  Sumner.  Lamar  was  not  quick 
to  quarrel,  though  when  aroused  a  man  of  devilish 
temper  and  courage."  The  subject  had  become  dis- 
tasteful to  him.  He  was  growing  obviously  restive 
under  Toombs'  banter.  The  ladies  of  the  house- 
hold apprehending  what  was  coining  left  the  table. 

Then  Lamar  broke  forth.  He  put  Toombs'  visit 
to  Grant,  "crawling  at  the  seat  of  power,"  against 
his  eulogy  of  a  dead  enemy.  I  have  never  heard 
such  a  scoring  from  one  man  to  another.  It  was 
magisterial  in  its  dignity,  deadly  in  its  diction. 
Nothing  short  of  a  duel  could  have  settled  it  in  the 

[65] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

olden  time.  But  when  Lamar,  white  with  rage, 
had  finished,  Toombs  without  a  ruffle  said,  "Lamar, 
you  surprise  me,"  and  the  host,  with  the  rest  of  us, 
took  it  as  a  signal  to  rise  from  table  and  rejoin  the 
ladies  in  the  drawing-room.  Of  course  nothing 
came  of  it. 

Toombs  was  as  much  a  humorist  as  an  extremist. 
I  have  ridden  with  him  under  fire  and  heard  him 
crack  jokes  with  Minie  balls  flying  uncomfortably 
about.  Some  one  spoke  kindly  of  him  to  old  Ben 
Wade.  "Yes,  yes,"  said  Wade;  "I  never  did  be- 
lieve in  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity." 

But  I  am  running  ahead  in  advance  of  events. 

VI 

There  came  in  1853  to  the  Thirty- third  Congress 
a  youngish,  dapper  and  graceful  man  notable  as 
the  only  Democrat  in  the  Massachusetts  delegation. 
It  was  said  that  he  had  been  a  dancing  master,  his 
wife  a  work  girl.  They  brought  with  them  a  baby 
in  arms  with  the  wife's  sister  for  its  nurse — a  mis- 
step which  was  quickly  corrected.  I  cannot  now 
tell  just  how  I  came  to  be  very  intimate  with  them 
except  that  they  lived  at  Willard's  Hotel.  His 
[66] 


'MARSE  HENRY" 

name  had  a  pretty  sound  to  it — Nathaniel  Prentiss 
Banks. 

A  schoolmate  of  mine  and  myself,  greatly  to  the 
mirth  of  those  about  us,  undertook  Mr.  Banks' 
career.  We  were  going  to  elect  him  Speaker  of 
the  next  House  and  then  President  of  the  United 
States.  This  was  particularly  laughable  to  my 
mother  and  Mrs.  Linn  Boyd,  the  wife  of  the  con- 
temporary Speaker,  who  had  very  solid  presidential 
aspirations  of  his  own. 

The  suggestion  perhaps  originated  with  Mrs. 
Banks,  to  whom  we  two  were  ardently  devoted.  I 
have  not  seen  her  since  those  days,  more  than  sixty 
years  ago.  But  her  beauty,  which  then  charmed 
me,  still  lingers  in  my  memory  —  a  gentle,  sweet 
creature  who  made  much  of  us  boys — and  two 
years  later  when  Mr.  Banks  was  actually  elected 
Speaker  I  was  greatly  elated  and  took  some  of 
the  credit  to  myself.  Twenty  years  afterwards 
General  Banks  and  I  had  our  seats  close  together 
in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  and  he  did  not  re- 
call me  at  all  or  the  episode  of  1853.  Nevertheless 
I  warmed  to  him,  and  when  during  Cleveland's  first 
term  he  came  to  me  with  a  hard-luck  story  I  was 
glad  to  throw  myself  into  the  breach.    He  had  been 

[67] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

a  Speaker  of  the  House,  a  general  in  the  field  and 
a  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  but  was  a  faded  old 
man,  very  commonplace,  and  except  for  the  little 
post  he  held  under  Government  pitiably  helpless. 

Colonel  George  Walton  was  one  of  my  father's 
intimates  and  an  imposing  and  familiar  figure 
about  Washington.  He  was  the  son  of  a  signer  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  distinction  in 
those  days,  had  been  mayor  of  Mobile  and  was  an 
unending  raconteur.  To  my  childish  mind  he  ap- 
peared to  know  everything  that  ever  had  been  or 
ever  would  be.  He  would  tell  me  stories  by  the 
hour  and  send  me  to  buy  him  lottery  tickets.  I 
afterward  learned  that  that  form  of  gambling  was 
his  mania.  I  also  learned  that  many  of  his  stories 
were  apocryphal  or  very  highly  colored. 

One  of  these  stories  especially  took  me.  It  re" 
lated  how  when  he  was  on  a  yachting  cruise  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  the  boat  was  overhauled  by  pirates, 
and  how  he  being  the  likeliest  of  the  company  was 
tied  up  and  whipped  to  make  him  disgorge,  or  tell 
where  the  treasure  was. 

"Colonel  Walton,"  said  I,  "did  the  whipping 
hurt  you  much?" 
[68] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Sir,"  he  replied,  as  if  I  were  a  grown-up,  "they 
whipped  me  until  I  was  perfectly  disgusted." 

An  old  lady  in  Philadelphia,  whilst  I  was  at 
school,  heard  me  mention  Colonel  Walton — a  most 
distinguished,  religious  old  lady — and  said  to  me, 
"Henry,  my  son,  you  should  be  ashamed  to  speak 
of  that  old  villain  or  confess  that  you  ever  knew 
him,"  proceeding  to  give  me  his  awful,  blood-cur- 
dling history. 

It  was  mainly  a  figment  of  her  fancy  and 
prejudice,  and  I  repeated  it  to  Colonel  Walton  the 
next  time  I  went  to  the  hotel  where  he  was  then 
living — I  have  since  learned,  with  a  lady  not  his 
wife,  though  he  was  then  three  score  and  ten — and 
he  cried,  "That  old  hag!  Good  Lord!  Don't  they 
ever  die!" 

Seeing  every  day  the  most  distinguished  public 
men  of  the  country,  and  with  many  of  them  brought 
into  direct  acquaintance  by  the  easy  intercourse  of 
hotel  life,  destroyed  any  reverence  I  might  have 
acquired  for  official  station.  Familiarity  may  not 
always  breed  contempt,  but  it  is  a  veritable  eye 
opener.  To  me  no  divinity  hedged  the  brow  of  a 
senator.    I  knew  the  White  House  too  well  to  be 

[69] 


1 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

impressed  by  its  architectural  grandeur  without  and 
rather  bizarre  furnishments  within. 

I  have  declaimed  not  a  little  in  my  time  about 
the  ignoble  trade  of  politics,  the  collective  dis.*4- 
honesty  of  parties  and  the  vulgarities  of  the  self- 
exploiting  professional  office  hunters.  Parties  are 
parties.  Professional  politics  and  politicians  are 
probably  neither  worse  nor  better — barring  their 
pretensions — than  other  lines  of  human  endeavor. 
The  play  actor  must  be  agreeable  on  the  stage  of 
the  playhouse;  the  politician  on  the  highways  and 
the  hustings,  which  constitute  his  playhouse — all 
the  world  a  stage — neither  to  be  seriously  blamed 
for  the  dissimulation  which,  being  an  asset,  be- 
comes, as  it  were,  a  second  nature. 

The  men  who  between  1850  and  1861  might  have 
saved  the  Union  and  averted  the  War  of  Sections 
were  on  either  side  professional  politicians,  with 
here  and  there  an  unselfish,  far-seeing,  patriotic 
man,  whose  admonitions  were  not  heeded  by  the 
people  ranging  on  opposing  sides  of  party  lines. 
The  two  most  potential  of  the  party  leaders  were 
Mr.  Davis  and  Mr.  Seward.  The  South  might 
[70] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

have  seen  and  known  that  the  one  hope  of  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery  lay  in  the  Union.  However  it 
ended,  disunion  led  to  abolition.  The  world — the 
whole  trend  of  modern  thought — was  set  against 
slavery.  But  politics,  based  on  party  feeling,  is  a 
game  of  blindman's  buff.  And  then — here  I  show 
myself  a  son  of  Scotland — there  is  a  destiny. 
"What  is  to  be,"  says  the  predestinarian  Mother 
Goose,  "will  be,  though  it  never  come  to  pass." 

That  was  surely  the  logic  of  the  irrepressible  con- 
flict— only  it  did  come  to  pass — and  for  four  years 
millions  of  people,  the  most  homogeneous,  practical 
and  intelligent,  fought  to  a  finish  a  fight  over  a 
quiddity;  both  devoted  to  liberty,  order  and  law, 
neither  seeking  any  real  change  in  the  character  of 
its  organic  contract. 

Human  nature  remains  ever  the  same.  These 
days  are  very  like  those  days.  We  have  had  fifty 
years  of  a  restored  Union.  The  sectional  fires 
have  quite  gone  out.  Yet  behold  the  schemes  of 
revolution  claiming  the  regenerative.  Most  of 
them  call  themselves  the  "uplift !" 

Let  us  agree  at  once  that  all  government  is  more 
or  less  a  failure ;  society  as  fraudulent  as  the  satir- 
ists describe  it;  yet,  when  we  turn  to  the  uplift — 

[71] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

particularly  the  professional  uplift — what  do  we 
find  but  the  same  old  tunes,  hypocrisy  and  empiri- 
cism posing  as  "friends  of  the  people,"  preaching 
the  pussy  gospel  of  "sweetness  and  light?" 

"Words,  words,  words,"  says  Hamlet.  Even  as 
veteran  writers  for  the  press  have  come  through 
disheartening  experience  to  a  realizing  sense  of  the 
futility  of  printer's  ink  must  our  academic  pundits 
begin  to  suspect  the  futility  of  art  and  letters. 
Words  however  cleverly  writ  on  paper  are  after 
all  but  words.  "In  a  nation  of  blind  men,"  we  are 
told,  "the  one-eyed  man  is  king."  In  a  nation  of 
undiscriminating  voters  the  noise  of  the  agitator  is 
apt  to  drown  the  voice  of  the  statesman.  We  have 
been  teaching  everybody  to  read,  nobody  to  think; 
and  as  a  consequence — the  rule  of  numbers  the 
law  of  the  land,  partyism  in  the  saddle — legisla- 
tion, state  and  Federal,  becomes  largely  a  matter 
of  riding  to  hounds  and  horns.  All  this,  which 
was  true  in  the  fifties,  is  true  to-day. 

Under  the  pretense  of  "liberalizing"  the  Gov- 
ernment the  politicians  are  sacrificing  its  organic 
character  to  whimsical  experimentation;  its  checks 
and  balances  wisely  designed  to  promote  and  pro- 
tect liberty  are  being  loosened  by  schemes  of  re- 
[72] 


"MARSE  HENRY'' 

form  more  or  less  visionary;  while  nowhere  do  we 
find  intelligence  enlightened  by  experience,  and 
conviction  supported  by  self-control,  interposing 
to  save  the  representative  system  of  the  Constitu- 
tion from  the  onward  march  of  the  proletariat. 

One  cynic  tells  us  that  "A  statesman  is  a  politi- 
cian who  is  dead,"  and  another  cynic  varies  the 
epigram  to  read  "A  politician  out  of  a  job."  Pa- 
triotism cries  "God  give  us  men,"  but  the  parties 
say  "Give  us  votes  and  offices,"  and  Congress  pro- 
ceeds to  create  a  commission.  Thus  responsibilities 
are  shirked  and  places  are  multiplied. 

Assuming,  since  many  do,  that  the  life  of  nations 
is  mortal  even  as  is  the  life  of  man — in  all  things 
of  growth  and  decline  assimilating — has  not  our 
world  reached  the  top  of  the  acclivity,  and  pausing 
for  a  moment  may  it  not  be  about  to  take  the  down- 
ward course  into  another  abyss  of  collapse  and 
oblivion? 

The  miracles  of  electricity  the  last  word  of 
science,  what  is  left  for  man  to  do?  With  wireless 
telegraphy,  the  airplane  and  the  automobile  annihi- 
lating time  and  space,  what  else?  Turning  from  the 
material  to  the  ethical  it  seems  of  the  very  nature 
of  the  human  species  to  meddle  and  muddle.    On 

[73] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

every  hand  we  see  the  organization  of  societies  for 
making  men  and  women  over  again  according  to 
certain  fantastic  images  existing  in  the  minds  of 
the  promoters.  "Mem  Dieul"  exclaimed  the  visit- 
ing Frenchman.  "Fifty  religions  and  only  one 
soup!"  Since  then  both  the  soups  and  the  religions 
have  multiplied  until  there  is  scarce  a  culinary  or 
moral  conception  which  has  not  some  sect  or  club  to 
represent  it.    The  uplift  is  the  keynote  of  these. 


[74] 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 

THE  INAUGURATION  OF  LINCOLN — I  QUIT  WASHING- 
TON AND  RETURN  TO  TENNESSEE A  RUN- 
ABOUT WITH  EORREST THROUGH  THE  FEDERAL 

LINES    AND    A    DANGEROUS    ADVENTURE GOOD 

LUCK  AT  MEMPHIS 


IT  MAY  have  been  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  or  it 
may  have  been  Madame  de  Pompadour,  who 
said,  "After  me  the  deluge ;"  but  whichever  it  was, 
very  much  that  thought  was  in  Mr.  Buchanan's 
mind  in  1861  as  the  time  for  his  exit  from  the  White 
House  approached.  At  the  North  there  had  been 
a  political  ground-swell;  at  the  South,  secession, 
half  accomplished  by  the  Gulf  States,  yawned  in 
the  Border  States.  Curiously  enough,  very  few  be- 
lieved that  war  was  imminent. 

As  a  reporter  for  the  States  I  met  Mr.  Lincoln 
immediately  on  his  arrival  in  Washington.  He 
came  in  unexpectedly  ahead  of  the  hour  announced, 
to  escape,  as  was  given  out,  a  well-laid  plan  to 

[75] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

assassinate  him  as  he  passed  through  Baltimore.  I 
did  not  believe  at  the  time,  and  I  do  not  believe 
now,  that  there  was  any  real  ground  for  this  ap- 
prehension. 

All  through  that  winter  there  had  been  a  deal  of 
wild  talk.  One  story  had  it  that  Mr.  Buchanan  was 
to  be  kidnapped  and  made  off  with  so  that  Vice 
President  Breckenridge  might  succeed  and,  acting 
as  de  facto  President,  throw  the  country  into  con- 
fusion and  revolution,  defeating  the  inauguration 
of  Lincoln  and  the  coming  in  of  the  Republicans. 
It  was  a  figment  of  drink  and  fancy.  There  was 
never  any  such  scheme.  If  there  had  been  Breck- 
enridge would  not  have  consented  to  be  party  to  it. 
He  was  a  man  of  unusual  mental  as  well  as  per- 
sonal dignity  and  both  temperamentally  and  in- 
tellectually a  thorough  conservative. 

I  had  been  engaged  by  Mr.  L.  A.  Gobright,  the 
agent  of  what  became  later  the  Associated  Press, 
to  help  with  the  report  of  the  inauguration  cere- 
monies the  4th  of  March,  1861,  and  in  the  discharge 
of  this  duty  I  kept  as  close  to  Mr.  Lincoln  as  I 
cofuld  get,  following  after  him  from  the  senate 
chamber  to  the  east  portico  of  the  capitol  and  stand- 
[76] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ing  by  his  side  whilst  he  delivered  his  inaugural 
address. 

Perhaps  I  shall  not  be  deemed  prolix  if  I  dwell 
with  some  particularity  upon  an  occasion  so  his- 
toric. I  had  first  encountered  the  newly  elected 
President  the  afternoon  of  the  day  in  the  early 
morning  of  which  he  had  arrived  in  Washington. 
It  was  a  Saturday,  I  think.  He  came  to  the  capitol 
under  the  escort  of  Mr.  Seward,  and  among  the 
rest  I  was  presented  to  him.  His  appearance  did 
not  impress  me  as  fantastically  as  it  had  impressed 
some  others.  I  was  familiar  with  the  Western 
type,  and  whilst  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  an  Adonis, 
even  after  prairie  ideals,  there  was  about  him  a 
dignity  that  commanded  respect. 

I  met  him  again  the  next  Monday  forenoon  in 
his  apartment  at  Willard's  Hotel  as  he  was  pre- 
paring to  start  to  his  inauguration,  and  was  struck 
by  his  unaffected  kindness,  for  I  came  with  a  mat- 
ter requiring  his  attention.  This  was,  in  point  of 
fact,  to  get  from  him  a  copy  of  the  inauguration 
speech  for  the  Associated  Press.  I  turned  it  over 
to  Ben  Perley  Poore,  who,  like  myself,  was  assist- 
ing Mr.  Gobright.  The  President  that  was  about 
to  be  seemed  entirely  self-possessed;  not  a  sign  of 

[77] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

nervousness,  and  very  obliging.  As  I  have  said,  I 
accompanied  the  cortege  that  passed  from  the  sen- 
ate chamber  to  the  east  portico.  When  Mr.  Lin- 
coln removed  his  hat  to  face  the  vast  throng  in 
front  and  below,  I  extended  my  hand  to  take  it, 
but  Judge  Douglas,  just  behind  me,  reached  over 
my  outstretched  arm  and  received  it,  holding  it 
during  the  delivery  of  the  address.  I  stood  just 
near  enough  the  speaker's  elbow  not  to  obstruct 
any  gestures  he  might  make,  though  he  made  but 
few;  and  then  I  began  to  get  a  suspicion  of  the 
power  of  the  man. 

He  delivered  that  inaugural  address  as  if  he  had 
been  delivering  inaugural  addresses  all  his  life. 
Firm,  resonant,  earnest,  it  announced  the  coming 
of  a  man,  of  a  leader  of  men;  and  in  its  tone  and 
style  the  gentlemen  whom  he  had  invited  to  become 
members  of  his  political  family — each  of  whom 
thought  himself  a  bigger  man  than  his  chief — might 
have  heard  the  voice  and  seen  the  hand  of  one  born 
to  rule.  Whether  they  did  or  not,  they  very  soon 
ascertained  the  fact.  From  the  hour  Abraham  Lin- 
coln crossed  the  threshold  of  the  White  House  to 
the  hour  he  went  thence  to  his  death,  there  was  not 
a  moment  when  he  did  not  dominate  the  political 
[78] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  military  situation  and  his  official  subordinates., 
The  idea  that  he  was  overtopped  at  any  time  by  -j 
anybody  is  contradicted  by  all  that  actually  hap-  '•> 
pened. 

I  was  a  young  Democrat  and  of  course  not  in 
sympathy  with  Mr.  Lincoln  or  his  opinions.  Judge 
Douglas,  however,  had  taken  the  edge  off  my 
hostility.  He  had  said  to  me  upon  his  return  in 
triumph  to  Washington  after  the  famous  Illinois  J 
campaign  of  1868 :  "Lincoln  is  a  good  man ;  in  fact,  j«  <?  T$ 
a  great  man,  and  by  far  the  ablest  debater  I  have 
ever  met,"  and  now  the  newcomer  began  to  verify 
this  opinion  both  in  his  private  conversation  and  in 
his  public  attitude. 

H 

I  had  been  an  undoubting  Union  boy.  Neither 
then  nor  afterward  could  I  be  fairly  classified  as  a 
Secessionist.  Circumstance  rather  than  convic- 
tion or  predilection  threw  me  into  the  Confederate 
service,  and,  being  in,  I  went  through  with  it. 

The  secession  leaders  I  held  in  distrust ;  especially 
Yancey,  Mason,  Slidell,  Benjamin  and  Iverson, 
Jefferson  Davis  and  Isham  G.  Harris  were  not 
favorites  of  mine.    Later  along  I  came  into  familiar 

[79] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

association  with  most  of  them,  and  relations  were 
established  which  may  be  described  as  confidential 
and  affectionate.  Lamar  and  I  were  brought  to- 
gether oddly  enough  in  1869  by  Carl  Schurz,  and 
thenceforward  we  were  the  most  devoted  friends. 
Harris  and  I  fell  together  in  1862  in  the  field,  first 
with  Forrest  and  later  with  Johnston  and  Hood, 
and  we  remained  as  brothers  to  the  end,  when  he 
closed  a  great  career  in  the  upper  house  of  Con- 
gress, and  by  Republican  votes,  though  he  was  a 
Democrat,  as  president  of  the  Senate. 

He  continued  in  the  Governorship  of  Tennessee 
through  the  war.  He  at  no  time  lost  touch  with 
the  Tennessee  troops,  and  though  not  always  in  the 
field,  never  missed  a  forward  movement.  In 
the  early  spring  of  1864,  just  before  the  famous 
Johnston- Sherman  campaign  opened,  General 
Johnston  asked  him  to  go  around  among  the  boys 
and  "stir  'em  up  a  bit."  The  Governor  invited  me 
to  ride  with  him.  Together  we  visited  every  sector 
in  the  army.  Threading  the  woods  of  North 
Georgia  on  this  round,  if  I  heard  it  once  I  heard  it 
fifty  times  shouted  from  a  distant  clearing:  "Here 
comes  ,Gov-ner  Harris,  fellows;  g'wine  to  be  a 
fight."  His  appearance  at  the  front  had  always 
[80] 


JOHN    BELL   OF  TENNESSEE IN    1860   PRESIDENTIAL 

•CANDIDATE    "UNION    PARTY" "EEI.L    AND    EVERETT'"    TICKET 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

preceded  and  been  long  ago  taken  as  a  signal  for 
battle. 

My  being  a  Washington  correspondent  of  the 

Philadelphia  Press  and  having  lived  since  childhood 
at  Willard's  Hotel,  where  the  Camerons  also  lived, 
will  furnish  the  key  to  my  becoming  an  actual  and 
active  rebel.  A  few  days  after  the  inauguration  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  Colonel  Forney  came  to  my  quarters 
and,  having  passed  the  time  of  day,  said:  "The 
Secretary  of  War  wishes  you  to  be  at  the  depart- 
ment to-morrow  morning  as  near  nine  o'clock  as 
you  can  make  it." 

"What  does  he  want,  Colonel  Forney?"  I  asked. 

"He  is  going  to  offer  you  the  position  of  private 
secretary  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  with  the  rank 
of  lieutenant  colonel,  and  I  am  very  desirous  that 
you  accept  it." 

He  went  away  leaving  me  rather  upset.  I  did 
not  sleep  very  soundly  that  night.  "So,"  I  argued 
to  myself,  "it  has  come  to  this,  that  Forney  and 
Cameron,  lifelong  enemies,  have  made  friends  and 
are  going  to  rob  the  Government — one  clerk  of  the 
House,  the  other  Secretary  of  War — and  I,  a 
mutual  choice,  am  to  be  the  confidential  middle 

[81] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

man."    I  still  had  a  home  in  Tennessee  and  I  rose 
from  my  bed,  resolved  to  go  there. 

I  did  not  keep  the  proposed  appointment  for 
next  day.  As  soon  as  I  could  make  arrangements 
I  quitted  Washington  and  went  to  Tennessee,  still 
unchanged  in  my  preconceptions.  I  may  add,  since 
they  were  verified  by  events,  that  I  have  not  modi- 
fied them  from  that  day  to  this. 

I  could  not  wholly  believe  with  either  extreme. 
I  had  perpetrated  no  wrong,  but  in  my  small  way 
had  done  my  best  for  the  Union  and  against  seces- 
sion. I  would  go  back  to  my  books  and  my  literary 
ambitions  and  let  the  storm  blow  over.  It  could 
not  last  very  long;  the  odds  against  the  South  were 
too  great.  Vain  hope!  As  well  expect  a  chip  on 
the  surface  of  the  ocean  to  lie  quiet  as  a  lad  of 
twenty-one  in  those  days  to  keep  out  of  one  or  the 
other  camp.  On  reaching  home  I  found  myself 
alone.  The  boys  were  all  gone  to  the  front.  The 
girls  were — well,  they  were  all  crazy.  My  native 
country  was  about  to  be  invaded.  Propinquity. 
Sympathy.  So,  casting  opinions  to  the  winds  in  I 
'  [went  on  feeling.  And  that  is  how  I  became  a  rebel, 
\  la  case  of  "first  endure  and  then  embrace,"  because 
'I  soon  got  to  be  a  pretty  good  rebel  and  went  the 
[82] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

limit,  changing  my  coat  as  it  were,  though  not  my 
better  judgment,  for  with  a  gray  jacket  on  my 
back  and  ready  to  do  or  die,  I  retained  my  belief 
that  secession  was  treason,  that  disunion  was  the 
height  of  folly  and  that  the  South  was  bound  to  go 
down  in  the  unequal  strife. 

I  think  now,  as  an  academic  proposition,  that,  in 
the  doctrine  of  secession,  the  secession  leaders  had 
a  debatable,  if  not  a  logical  case;  but  I  also  think 
that  if  the  Gulf  States  had  been  allowed  to  go  out 
by  tacit  consent  they  would  very  soon  have  been 
back  again  seeking  readmission  to  the  Union. 

Man  proposes  and  God  disposes.  The  ways  of 
Deity  to  man  are  indeed  past  finding  out.  Why,  the 
long  and  dreadful  struggle  of  a  kindred  people, 
the  awful  bloodshed  and  havoc  of  four  weary  years, 
leaving  us  at  the  close  measurably  where  we  were 
at  the  beginning,  is  one  of  the  mysteries  which 
should  prove  to  us  that  there  is  a  world  hereafter, 
since  no  great  creative  principle  could  produce  one 
with  so  dire,  with  so  short  a  span  and  nothing  be- 
yond. 

in 

The  change  of  parties  wrought  by  the  presiden- 
tial election  of  1860  and  completed  by  the  coming 

[83] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

in  of  the  Republicans  in  1861  was  indeed  revolu- 
tionary. When  Mr.  Lincoln  had  finished  his 
inaugural  address  and  the  crowd  on  the  east  portico 
began  to  disperse,  I  reentered  the  rotunda  between 
Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Maryland,  and  Mr.  John 
Bell,  of  Tennessee,  two  old  friends  of  my  family, 
and  for  a  little  we  sat  upon  a  bench,  they  discussing 
the  speech  we  had  just  heard. 

Both  were  sure  there  would  be  no  war.  All 
would  be  well,  they  thought,  each  speaking  kindly 
of  Mr.  Lincoln.  They  were  among  the  most 
eminent  men  of  the  time,  I  a  boy  of  twenty-one; 
but  to  me  war  seemed  a  certainty.  Recalling  the 
episode,  I  have  often  realized  how  the  intuitions  of 
youth  outwit  the  wisdom  and  baffle  the  experience 
of  age. 
i  I  at  once  resigned  my  snug  sinecure  in  the  In- 
Wlterior  Department  and,  closing  my  accounts  of 
I  jevery  sort,  was  presently  ready  to  turn  my  back 
upon  Washington  and  seek  adventures  elsewhere. 

They  met  me  halfway  and  came  in  plenty.  I 
tried  staff  duty  with  General  Polk,  who  was  mak- 
ing an  expedition  into  Western  Kentucky.  In  a 
few  weeks  illness  drove  me  into  Nashville,  where  I 
passed  the  next  winter  in  desultory  newspaper 
[84] 


V 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

work.     Then  Nashville  fell,  and,  as  I  was  making 
my  way  out  of  town  afoot  and  trudging  the  Mur- 
freesboro  pike,  Forrest,  with  his  squadron  just  es- 
caped from  Fort  Donelson,  came  thundering  by, 
and  I  leaped  into  an  empty  saddle.     A  few  days 
later  Forrest,  promoted  to  brigadier  general,  at- 
tached me  to  his  staff,  and  the  next  six  months  it 
was  mainly  guerilla  service,  very  much  to  my  liking.  7 ; 
But  Fate,  if  not  Nature,  had  decided  that  I  was  sL 
better  writer  than  fighter,  and  the  Bank  of  Ten-jj 
nessee  having  bought  a  newspaper  outfit  at  Chatta--' 
nooga,  I  was  sent  there  to  edit  The  Rebel — my  own 
naming — established  as  the  organ  of  the  Tennessee 
state  government.     I  made  it  the  organ  of  the 
army. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  these  pages  to  retell  the 
well-known  story  of  the  war.  My  life  became  a 
series  of  ups  and  downs — mainly  downs — the  word 
being  from  day  to  day  to  fire  and  fall  back;  in 
the  Johnston- Sherman  campaign,  I  served  as 
chief  of  scouts;  then  as  an  aid  to  General  Hood 
through  the  siege  of  Atlanta,  sharing  the  beginning 
of  the  chapter  of  disasters  that  befell  that  gallant 
soldier  and  his  army.  I  was  spared  the  last  and 
worst  of  these  by  a  curious  piece  of  special  duty, 

[85] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

taking  me  elsewhere,  to  which  I  was  assigned  in 
the  autumn  of  1864  by  the  Confederate  govern- 
ment. 

This  involved  a  foreign  journey.  It  was  no 
less  than  to  go  to  England  to  sell  to  English  buy- 
ers some  hundred  thousand  bales  of  designated  cot- 
ton to  be  thus  rescued  from  spoliation,  acting  under 
the  supervision  and  indeed  the  orders  of  the  Con- 
federate fiscal  agency  at  Liverpool. 

Of  course  I  was  ripe  for  this;  but  it  proved  a 
bigger  job  than  I  had  conceived  or  dreamed.  The 
initial  step  was  to  get  out  of  the  country.  But 
how?  That  was  the  question.  To  run  T;he  blockade 
had  been  easy  enough  a  few  months  earlier.  All 
our  ports  were  now  sealed  by  Federal  cruisers  and 
gunboats.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  slip 
through  the  North  and  to  get  either  a  New  York  or 
a  Canadian  boat.  This  involved  chances  and  dis- 
guises. 

rv 

In  West  Tennessee,  not  far  from  Memphis, 
lived  an  aunt  of  mine.  Thither  I  repaired.  My 
plan  was  to  get  on  a  Mississippi  steamer  calling  at 
one  of  the  landings  for  wood.  This  proved  im- 
practicable. I  wandered  many  days  and  nights, 
[86] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

rather  ill  mounted,  in  search  of  some  kind — any- 
kind — of  exit,  when  one  afternoon,  quite  worn  out, 
I  sat  by  a  log  heap  in  a  comfortable  farmhouse.  It 
seemed  that  I  was  at  the  end  of  my  tether;  I  did 
not  know  what  to  do. 

Presently  there  was  an  arrival — a  brisk  gentle- 
man right  out  of  Memphis,  which  I  then  learned 
was  only  ten  miles  distant — bringing  with  him  a 
morning  paper.  In  this  I  saw  appended  to  various 
army  orders  the  name  of  "N.  B.  Dana,  General 
Commanding." 

That  set  me  to  thinking.  Was  not  Dana  the 
name  of  a  certain  captain,  a  stepson  of  Congress- 
man Peaslee,  of  New  Hampshire,  who  had  lived 
with  us  at  Willard's  Hotel — and  were  there  not 
two  children,  Charley  and  Mamie,  and  a  dear  little 

mother,  and— I  had  been  listening  to  the  talk 

of  the  newcomer.  He  was  a  licensed  cotton  buyer 
with  a  pass  to  come  and  go  at  will  through  the 
lines,  and  was  returning  next  day. 

"I  want  to  get  into  Memphis — I  am  a  nephew  of 
Mrs.  General  Dana.  Can  you  take  me  in?"  I  said 
to  this  person. 

After  some  hesitation  he  consented  to  try,  it 

[87] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

being  agreed  that  my  mount  and  outfit  should  be 
his  if  he  got  me  through ;  no  trade  if  he  failed. 

Clearly  the  way  ahead  was  brightening.  I  soon 
ascertained  that  I  was  with  friends,  loyal  Con- 
federates. Then  I  told  them  who  I  was,  and  all 
became  excitement  for  the  next  day's  adventure. 

We  drove  down  to  the  Federal  outpost.  Cren- 
shaw— that  was  the  name  of  the  cotton  buyer — 
showed  his  pass  to  the  officer  in  command,  who 
then  turned  to  me.  "Captain,"  I  said,  "I  have  no 
pass,  but  I  am  a  nephew  of  Mrs.  General  Dana. 
Can  you  not  pass  me  in  without  a  pass?"  He  was 
very  polite.  It  was  a  chain  picket,  he  said;  his 
orders  were  very  strict,  and  so  on. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "suppose  I  were  a  member  of 
your  own  command  and  were  run  in  here  by 
guerillas.  What  do  you  think  would  it  be  your 
duty  to  do?" 

"In  that  case,"  he  answered,  "I  should  send  you 
to  headquarters  with  a  guard." 

"Good!"  said  I.  "Can't  you  send  me  to  head- 
quarters with  a  guard?" 

He  thought  a  moment.    Then  he  called  a  cavalry- 
man from  the  outpost. 
[88] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Britton,"  he  said,  "show  this  gentleman  in  to 
General  Dana's  headquarters." 

Crenshaw  lashed  his  horse  and  away  we  went. 
"That  boy  thinks  he  is  a  guide,  not  a  guard,"  said 
he.  "You  are  all  right.  We  can  easily  get  rid  of 
him." 

This  proved  true.  We  stopped  by  a  saloon  and 
bought  a  bottle  of  whisky.  When  we  reached  head- 
quarters the  lad  said,  "Do  you  gentlemen  want  me 
any  more?"  We  did  not.  Then  we  gave  him  the 
bottle  of  whisky  and  he  disappeared  round  the  cor- 
ner. "Now  you  are  safe,"  said  Crenshaw.  "Make 
tracks." 

But  as  I  turned  away  and  out  of  sight  I  began 
to  consider  the  situation.  Suppose  that  picket  on 
the  outpost  reported  to  the  provost  marshal  general 
that  he  had  passed  a  relative  of  Mrs.  Dana?  What 
then?  Provost  guard.  Drumhead  court-martial. 
Shot  at  daylight.  It  seemed  best  to  play  out  the 
hand  as  I  had  dealt  it.  After  all,  I  could  make  a 
case  if  I  faced  it  out. 

The  guard  at  the  door  refused  me  access  to  Gen- 
eral Dana.  Driven  by  a  nearby  hackman  to  the 
General's  residence,  and,  boldly  asking  for  Mrs. 
Dana,  I  was  more  successful.    I  introduced  myself 

[89] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

as  a  teacher  of  music  seeking  to  return  to  my 
friends  in  the  North,  working  in  a  word  about  the 
old  Washington  days,  not  forgetting  "Charley" 
and  "Mamie."  The  dear  little  woman  was  heartily 
responsive.  Both  were  there,  including  a  pretty 
girl  from  Philadelphia,  and  she  called  them  down. 
"Here  is  your  old  friend,  Henry  Waterman,"  she 
joyfully  exclaimed.  Then  guests  began  to  arrive. 
It  was  a  reception  evening.  My  hope  fell.  Some 
one  would  surely  recognize  me.  Presently  a  gen- 
tleman entered,  and  Mrs.  Dana  said:  "Colonel  Mee- 
han,  this  is  my  particular  friend,  Henry  Waterman, 
who  has  been  teaching  music  out  in  the  country, 
and  wants  to  go  up  the  river.  You  will  give  him  a 
pass,  I  am  sure."  It  was  the  provost  marshal,  who 
answered,  "certainly."  Now  was  my  tune  for  dis- 
appearing. But  Mrs.  Dana  would  not  listen  to  this. 
General  Dana  would  never  forgive  her  if  she  let 
me  go.  Besides,  there  was  to  be  a  supper  and  a 
dance.  I  sat  down  again  very  much  disconcerted. 
The  situation  was  becoming  awkward.  Then  Mrs. 
Dana  spoke.  "You  say  you  have  been  teaching 
music.  What  is  your  instrument?"  Saved!  "The 
piano,"  I  answered.  The  girls  escorted  me  to  the 
rear  drawing-room.  It  was  a  new  Steinway  Grand, 
[90] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

[just  set  up,  and  I  played  for  my  life.  If  the  black 
bombazine  covering  my  gray  uniform  did  not 
break,  all  would  be  well.  I  was  having  a  delight- 
fully good  time,  the  girls  on  either  hand,  when 
Mrs.  Dana,  still  enthusiastic,  ran  in  and  said,  "Gen- 
eral Dana  is  here.  Remembers  you  perfectly. 
Come  and  see  him." 

He  stood  by  a  table,  tall,  sardonic,  and  as  I  ap- 
proached he  put  out  his  hand  and  said:  "You  have 
grown  a  bit,  Henry,  my  boy,  since  I  saw  you  last. 
How  did  you  leave  my  friend  Forrest?" 

I  was  about  making  some  awkward  reply,  when, 
the  room  already  filling  up,  he  said: 

"We  have  some  friends  for  supper.  I  am  glad 
you  are  here.  Mamie,  my  daughter,  take  Mr.  Wat- 
terson  to  the  table!" 

Lord!  That  supper!  Canvasback!  Terrapin! 
Champagne!  The  general  had  seated  me  at  his 
right.  Somewhere  toward  the  close  those  expres- 
sive gray  eyes  looked  at  me  keenly,  and  across  his 
wine  glass  he  said: 

"I  think  I  understand  this.  You  want  to  get  up 
the  river.  You  want  to  see  your  mother.  Have 
you  money  enough  to  carry  you  through?  If  you 

[91] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

have  not  don't  hesitate,  for  whatever  you  need  I 
will  gladly  let  you  have." 

I  thanked  him.  I  had  quite  enough.  All  was 
well.  We  had  more  music  and  some  dancing.  At 
a  late  hour  he  called  the  provost  marshal. 

"Meehan,"  said  he,  "take  this  dangerous  young 
rebel  round  to  the  hotel,  register  him  as  Smith, 
Brown,  or  something,  and  send  him  with  a  pass  up 
the  river  by  the  first  steamer."  I  was  in  luck,  was 
I  not? 

But  I  made  no  impression  on  those  girls.  Many 
years  after,  meeting  Mamie  Dana,  as  the  wife  of  an 
army  officer  at  Fortress  Monroe,  I  related  the 
Memphis  incident.    She  did  not  in  the  least  recall  it. 


I  had  one  other  adventure  during  the  war  that 
may  be  worth  telling.  It  was  in  1862.  Forrest 
took  it  into  his  inexperienced  fighting  head  to  make 
a  cavalry  attack  upon  a  Federal  stockade,  and,  re- 
pulsed with  considerable  loss,  the  command  had  to 
disperse — there  were  not  more  than  two  hundred 
of  us — in  order  to  escape  capture  by  the  newly- 
arrived  reinforcements  that  swarmed  about.  We 
[92] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

were  to  rendezvous  later  at  a  certain  point.  Hav- 
ing some  time  to  spare,  and  being  near  the  family- 
homestead  at  Beech  Grove,  I  put  in  there. 

It  was  midnight  when  I  reached  my  destination. 
I  had  been  erroneously  informed  that  the  Union 
Army  was  on  the  retreat — quite  gone  from  the 
neighborhood;  and  next  day,  believing  the  coast 
was  clear,  I  donned  a  summer  suit  and  with  a  neigh- 
bor boy  who  had  been  wounded  at  Shiloh  and  in- 
valided home,  rode  over  to  visit  some  young  ladies. 
We  had  scarcely  been  welcomed  and  were  taking  a 
glass  of  wine  when,  looking  across  the  lawn,  we 
saw  that  the  place  was  being  surrounded  by  a  body 
of  blue-coats.  The  story  of  their  departure  had 
been  a  mistake.    They  were  not  all  gone. 

There  was  no  chance  of  escape.  We  were  placed 
in  a  hollow  square  and  marched  across  country  into 
camp.  Before  we  got  there  I  had  ascertained  that 
they  were  Indianians,  and  I  was  further  led  rightly 
to  surmise  what  we  called  in  1860  Douglas  Demo- 
crats. 

My  companion,  a  husky  fellow,  who  looked  and 
was  every  inch  a  soldier,  was  first  questioned  by  the 
colonel  in  command.  His  examination  was  brief. 
He  said  he  was  as  good  a  rebel  as  lived,  that  he  was 

[93] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

only  waiting  for  his  wound  to  heal  to  get  back  into 
the  Confederate  Army,  and  that  if  they  wanted  to 
hang  him  for  a  spy  to  go  ahead. 

I  was  aghast.  It  was  not  he  that  was  in  danger 
of  hanging,  but  myself,  a  soldier  in  citizen's  apparel 
within  the  enemy's  lines.  The  colonel  turned  to 
me.    With  what  I  took  for  a  sneer  he  said: 

"I  suppose  you  are  a  good  Union  man?"  This 
offered  me  a  chance. 

"That  depends  upon  what  you  call  a  good  Union 
man,"  I  answered.  "I  used  to  be  a  very  good 
Union  man — a  Douglas  Democrat — and  I  am  not 
conscious  of  having  changed  my  political  opinions." 

That  softened  him  and  we  had  an  old-fashioned, 
friendly  talk  about  the  situation,  in  which  I  kept 
the  Douglas  Democratic  end  of  it  well  to  the  fore. 
He,  too,  had  been  a  Douglas  Democrat.  I  soon 
saw  that  it  was  my  companion  and  not  myself  whom 
they  were  after.  Presently  Colonel  Shook,  that 
being  the  commandant's  name,  went  into  the  ad- 
jacent stockade  and  the  boys  about  began  to  be 
hearty  and  sympathetic.  I  made  them  a  regular 
Douglas  Democratic  speech.  They  brought  some 
"red  licker"  and  I  asked  for  some  sugrar  for  a  toddy, 
not  failing  to  cite  the  familiar  Sut  Lovingood  say- 
[94] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ingthat  "there  were  about  seventeen  round  the  door 
who  said  they'd  take  sugar  in  their 'n."  The  drink 
warmed  me  to  my  work,  making  me  quicker,  if  not 
bolder,  in  invention.  Then  the  colonel  not  reap- 
pearing as  soon  as  I  hoped  he  would,  for  all  along 
my  fear  was  the  wires,  I  went  to  him. 

"Colonel  Shook,"  I  said,  "you  need  not  bother 
about  this  friend  of  mine.  He  has  no  real  idea  of 
returning  to  the  Confederate  service.  He  is  teach- 
ing school  over  here  at  Beech  Grove  and  engaged 
to  be  married  to  one  of  the — girls.  If  you  carry 
him  off  a  prisoner  he  will  be  exchanged  back  into 
the  fighting  line,  and  we  make  nothing  by  it.  There 

is  a  hot  luncheon  waiting  for  us  at  the 's.  Leave 

him  to  me  and  I  will  be  answerable."  Then  I  left 
him. 

Directly  he  came  out  and  said:  "I  may  be  doing 
wrong,  and  don't  feel  entirely  sure  of  my  ground, 
but  I  am  going  to  let  you  gentlemen  go." 

We  thanked  him  and  made  off  amid  the  cheery 
good-bys  of  the  assembled  blue-coats. 

No  lunch  for  us.  We  got  to  our  horses,  rode 
away,  and  that  night  I  was  at  our  rendezvous  to 
tell  the  tale  to  those  of  my  comrades  who  had  ar- 
rived before  me. 

[95] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Colonel  Shook  and  I  met  after  the  war  at  a 
Grand  Army  reunion  where  I  was  billed  to  speak 
and  to  which  he  introduced  me,  relating  the  inci- 
dent and  saying,  among  other  things:  "I  do  believe 
that  when  he  told  me  near  Wartrace  that  day 
twenty  years  ago  that  he  was  a  good  Union  man  he 
told  at  least  half  the  truth." 


[96] 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 

I  GO  TO  LONDON — AM  INTRODUCED  TO  A  NOTABLE  SET 

HUXLEY,  SPENCER,  MILL  AND  TYNDALL AR- 

TEMUS    WARD    COMES    TO    TOWN — THE    SAVAGE 
CLUB. 

I 

THE  fall  of  Atlanta  after  a  siege  of  nearly 
two  months  was,  in  the  opinion  of  thoughtful 
people,  the  sure  precursor  of  the  fall  of  the  doomed 
Confederacy.     I  had  an  affectionate  regard  for 
General  Hood,  but  it  was  my  belief  that  neither 
he  nor  any  other  soldier  could  save  the  day,  and 
being  out  of  commission  and  having  no  mind  for 
what  I  conceived  aimless  campaigning  through  an- 
other winter — especially  an  advance  into  Tennes- 
see upon  Nashville — I  wrote  to  an  old  friend  of(j 
mine,  who  owned  the  Montgomery  Mail,  asking  h 
for  a  job.    He  answered  that  if  I  would  come  right  if 
along  and  take  the  editorship  of  the  paper  he  would  |  j 
make  me  a  present  of  half  of  it — a  proposal  so  op-1 
portune  and  tempting  that  forty-eight  hours  later 
saw  me  in  the  capital  of  Alabama. 

[97]; 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  was  accompanied  by  my  fidus  Achates,  Albert 
Roberts.  The  morning  after  our  arrival,  by  chance 
I  came  across  a  printed  line  which  advertised  a  room 
and  board  for  two  "single  gentlemen,"  with  the 
curious  affix  for  those  times,  "references  will  be 
given  and  required."  This  latter  caught  me. 
When  I  rang  the  visitors'  bell  of  a  pretty  dwell- 
ing upon  one  of  the  nearby  streets  a  distinguished 
gentleman  in  uniform  came  to  the  door,  and,  ac- 
quainted with  my  business,  he  said,  "Ah,  that  is  an 
affair  of  my  wife,"  and  invited  me  within. 

He  was  obviously  English.  Presently  there  ap- 
peared a  beautiful  lady,  likewise  English  and  as 
obviously  a  gentlewoman,  and  an  hour  later  my 
friend  Roberts  and  I  moved  in.  The  incident 
proved  in  many  ways  fateful.  The  military  gen- 
tleman proved  to  be  Doctor  Scott,  the  post  sur- 
geon. He  was,  when  we  came  to  know  him,  the 
most  interesting  of  men,  a  son  of  that  Captain 
Scott  who  commanded  Byron's  flagship  at  Misso- 
longhi  in  1823 ;  had  as  a  lad  attended  the  poet  and  he 
in  his  last  illness  and  been  in  at  the  death,  seeing 
the  club  foot  when  the  body  was  prepared  for  burial. 
His  wife  was  adorable.  There  were  two  girls  and 
two  boys.  To  make  a  long  story  short,  Albert  Rob- 
[98] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

erts  married  one  of  the  daughters,  his  brother  the 
other ;  the  lads  growing  up  to  be  successful  and  dis- 
tinguished men — one  a  naval  admiral,  the  other  a 
railway  president.  When,  just  after  the  war,  I 
was  going  abroad,  Mrs.  Scott  said:  "I  have  a 
brother  living  in  London  to  whom  I  will  be  glad 

to  give  you  a  letter." 

ii 

Upon  the  deck  of  the  steamer  bound  from  New 
York  to  London  direct,  as  we,  my  wife  and  I  newly 
married,  were  taking  a  last  look  at  the  receding 
American  shore,  there  appeared  a  gentleman  who 
seemed  by  the  cut  of  his  jib  startlingly  French.  We 
had  under  our  escort  a  French  governess  returning 
to  Paris.  In  a  twinkle  she  and  this  gentleman  had 
struck  up  an  acquaintance,  and  much  to  my  dis- 
pleasure she  introduced  him  to  me  as  "Monsieur 
Mahoney."  I  was  somewhat  mollified  when  later 
we  were  made  acquainted  with  Madame  Mahoney. 

I  was  not  at  all  preconceived  in  his  favor,  nor  did 
Monsieur  Mahoney,  upon  nearer  approach,  con- 
ciliate my  simple  taste.  In  person,  manners  and 
apparel  he  was  quite  beyond  me.  Mrs.  Mahoney, 
however,  as  we  soon  called  her,  was  a  dear,  whole- 
souled,  traveled,  unaffected  New  England  woman. 

[99] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

But  Monsieur!  Lord!  There  was  no  holding  him 
at  arm's  length.  He  brooked  not  resistance.  I  was 
wearing  a  full  beard.  He  said  it  would  never  do, 
carried  me  perforce  below,  and  cut  it  as  I  have  worn 
it  ever  since.  The  day  before  we  were  to  dock  he 
took  me  aside  and  said: 

"Mee  young  friend" — he  had  a  brogue  which 
thirty  years  in  Algiers,  where  he  had  been  consul, 
and  a  dozen  in  Paris  as  a  gentleman  of  leisure,  had 
not  wholly  spoiled — "Mee  young  friend,  I  observe 
that  you  are  shy  of  strangers,  but  my  wife  and  I 
have  taken  a  shine  to  you  and  the  'Princess',"  as 
he  called  Mrs.  Watterson,  "and  if  you  will  allow 
us,  we  can  be  of  some  sarvis  to  you  when  we  get  to 
town." 

Certainly  there  was  no  help  for  it.  I  was  too  ill 
of  the  long  crossing  to  oppose  him.  At  Blackwall 
we  took  the  High  Level  for  Fenchurch  Street,  at 
Fenchurch  Street  a  cab  for  the  West  End — Mr. 
Mahoney  bossing  the  job — and  finally,  in  most 
comfortable  and  inexpensive  lodgings,  we  were 
settled  in  Jermyn  Street.  The  Mahoneys  were 
visiting  Lady  Elmore,  widow  of  a  famous  surgeon 
and  mother  of  the  President  of  the  Royal  Academy. 

[100] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Thus  we  were  introduced  to  quite  a  distinguished 
artistic  set. 

It  was  great.  It  was  glorious.  At  last  we  were 
in  London — the  dream  of  my  literary  ambitions.  I 
have  since  lived  much  in  this  wondrous  city  and  in 
many  parts  of  it  between  Hyde  Park  Corner,  the 
heart  of  May  Fair,  to  the  east  end  of  Bloomsbury 
under  the  very  sound  of  Bow  Bells.  All  the  way  as 
it  were  from  Tyburn  Tree  that  was,  and  the  Mar- 
ble Arch  that  is,  to  Charing  Cross  and  the  Hay 
Market.  This  were  not  to  mention  casual  sojourns 
along  Piccadilly  and  the  Strand. 

In  childhood  I  was  obsessed  by  the  immensity, 
the  atmosphere  and  the  mystery  of  London.  Its 
nomenclature  embedded  itself  in  my  fancy ;  Houns- 
ditch  and  Shoreditch,  Billingsgate  and  Blackfriars ; 
Bishopgate,  within,  and  Bishopgate,  without; 
Threadneedle  Street  and  Wapping-Old-Stairs; 
the  Inns  of  Court  where  Jarndyce  struggled  with 
Jarndyce,  and  the  taverns  where  the  Mark  Tap- 
leys,  the  Captain  Costigans  and  the  Dolly  Var- 
dens  consorted. 

Alike  in  winter  fog  and  summer  haze,  I  grew  to 
know  and  love  it,  and  those  that  may  be  called  its 
dramatis  personae,  especially  its  tatterdemalions, 

[101] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  long  procession  led  by  Jack  Sheppard,  Dick 
Turpin  and  Jonathan  Wild  the  Great.  Inevitably 
I  sought  their  haunts — and  they  were  not  all  gone 
in  those  days;  the  Bull-and-Gate  in  Holborn, 
whither  Mr.  Tom  Jones  repaired  on  his  arrival  in 
town,  and  the  White  Hart  Tavern,  where  Mr. 
Pickwick  fell  in  with  Mr.  Sam  Weller;  the  regions 
about  Leicester  Fields  and  Russell  Square  sacred 
to  the  memory  of  Captain  Booth  and  the  lovely 
Amelia  and  Becky  Sharp;  where  Garrick  drank 
tea  with  Dr.  Johnson  and  Henry  Esmond  tippled 
with  Sir  Richard  Steele.  There  was  yet  a  Pump 
Court,  and  many  places  along  Oxford  Street  where 
Mantalini  and  De  Quincy  loitered:  and  Covent 
Garden  and  Drury  Lane.  Evans'  Coffee  House, 
or  shall  I  say  the  Cave  of  Harmony,  and  The  Cock 
and  the  Cheshire  Cheese  were  near  at  hand  for  re- 
freshment in  the  agreeable  society  of  Daniel  Defoe 
and  Joseph  Addison,  with  Oliver  Goldsmith  and 
Dick  Swiveller  and  Colonel  Newcome  to  clink 
ghostly  glasses  amid  the  punch  fumes  and  tobacco 
smoke.  In  short  I  knew  London  when  it  was  still 
Old  London — the  knowledge  of  Temple  Bar  and 
Cheapside — before  the  vandal  horde  of  progress 
[102] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  the  pickaxe  of  the  builder  had  got  in  their 
nefarious  work. 

in 

Not  long  after  we  began  our  sojourn  in  London, 
I  recurred — by  chance,  I  am  ashamed  to  say — to 
Mrs.  Scott's  letter  of  introduction  to  her  brother. 
The  address  read  "Mr.  Thomas  H.  Huxley,  School 
of  Mines,  Jermyn  Street."  Why,  it  was  but  two  or 
three  blocks  away,  and  being  so  near  I  called,  not 
knowing  just  who  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Huxley  might 
be. 

I  was  conducted  to  a  dark,  stuffy  little  room. 
The  gentleman  who  met  me  was  exceedingly  hand- 
some and  very  agreeable.  He  greeted  me  cordially 
and  we  had  some  talk  about  his  relatives  in  Amer- 
ica. Of  course  my  wife  and  I  were  invited  at  once 
to  dinner.  I  was  a  little  perplexed.  There  was  no 
one  to  tell  me  about  Huxley,  or  in  what  way  he 
might  be  connected  with  the  School  of  Mines. 

It  was  a  good  dinner.  There  sat  at  table  a 
gentleman  by  the  name  of  Tyndall  and  another  by 
the  name  of  Mill — of  neither  I  had  ever  heard — but 
there  was  still  another  of  the  name  of  Spencer, 
whom  I  fancied  must  be  a  literary  man,  for  I  re- 
called having  reviewed  a  clever  book  on  Education 

[103] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

some  four  years  agone  by  a  writer  of  that  name; 
a  certain  Herbert  Spencer,  whom  I  rightly  judged 
might  he  be. 

The  dinner,  I  repeat,  was  a  very  good  dinner  in- 
deed— the  Huxley s,  I  took  it,  must  be  well  to  do — 
the  company  agreeable;  a  bit  pragmatic,  however, 
I  thought.  The  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Spencer 
said  he  loved  music  and  wished  to  hear  Mrs.  Wat- 
terson  sing,  especially  Longfellow's  Rainy  Day, 
and  left  the  others  of  us — Huxley,  Mill,  Tyndall 
and  myself — at  table.  Finding  them  a  little  off  on 
the  Irish  question  as  well  as  American  affairs,  I  set 
them  right  as  to  both  with  much  particularity  and 
a  great  deal  of  satisfaction  to  myself. 

Whatever  Huxley's  occupation,  it  turned  out 
that  he  had  at  least  one  book-publishing  acquaint- 
ance, Mr.  Alexander  Macmillan,  to  whom  he  intro- 
duced me  next  day,  for  I  had  brought  with  me  a 
novel — the  great  American  romance — too  good  to 
be  wasted  on  New  York,  Philadelphia  or  Boston, 
but  to  appear  simultaneously  in  England  and  the 
United  States,  to  be  translated,  of  course,  into 
French,  Italian  and  German.  This  was  actually 
accepted.    It  was  held  for  final  revision. 

We  were  to  pass  the  winter  in  Italy.  An  event, 
[104] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

however,  called  me  suddenly  home.  Politics  and 
journalism  knocked  literature  sky  high,  and  the 
novel — it  was  entitled  "One  Story's  Good  Till  An- 
other Is  Told" — was  laid  by  and  quite  forgotten. 
Some  twenty  years  later,  at  a  moment  when  I  was 
being  lashed  from  one  end  of  the  line  to  the  other, 
my  wife  said : 

"Let  us  drop  the  nasty  politics  and  get  back  to 
literature."  She  had  preserved  the  old  manuscript, 
two  thousand  pages  of  it. 

"Fetch  it,"  I  said. 

She  brought  it  with  effulgent  pride.  Heavens! 
The  stuff  it  was!  Not  a  gleam,  never  a  radiance. 
I  had  been  teaching  myself  to  write — I  had  been 
writing  for  the  English  market — perpendicular! 
The  Lord  has  surely  been  good  to  me.  If  the 
"boys"  had  ever  got  a  peep  at  that  novel,  I  had  been 
lost  indeed! 

IV 

Yea,  verily  we  were  in  London.  Presently 
Artemus  Ward  and  "the  show"  arrived  in  town. 
He  took  a  lodging  over  an  apothecary's  just  across 
the  way  from  Egyptian  Hall  in  Piccadilly,  where 
he  was  to  lecture.  We  had  been  the  best  of  friends, 
were  near  of  an  age,  and  only  round-the-corner 

[105] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

apart  we  became  from  the  first  inseparable.    I  in- 
troduced him  to  the  distinguished  scientific  set  into 
1    which  chance  had  thrown  me,  and  he  introduced 
^  me  to  a  very  different  set  that  made  a  revel  of  life 
at  the  Savage  Club. 

I  find  by  reference  to  some  notes  jotted  down  at 
the  time  that  the  last  I  saw  of  him  was  the  evening 
of  the  21st  of  December,  1866.  He  had  dined  with 
my  wife  and  myself,  and,  accompanied  by  Arthur 
Sketchley,  who  had  dropped  in  after  dinner,  he 
bade  us  good-by  and  went  for  his  nightly  grind,  as 
he  called  it.  We  were  booked  to  take  our  depar- 
ture the  next  morning.  His  condition  was  pitiable. 
He  was  too  feeble  to  walk  alone,  and  was  con- 
tinually struggling  to  breathe  freely.  His  surgeon 
had  forbidden  the  use  of  wine  or  liquor  of  any  sort. 
Instead  he  drank  quantities  of  water,  eating  little 
and  taking  no  exercise  at  all.  Nevertheless,  he 
stuck  to  his  lecture  and  contrived  to  keep  up  ap- 
pearances before  the  crowds  that  flocked  to  hear 
him,  and  even  in  London  his  critical  state  of  health 
was  not  suspected. 

Early  in  September,  when  I  had  parted  from  him 
to  go  to  Paris,  I  left  him  methodically  and  indus- 
triously arranging  for  his  debut.    He  had  brought 
[106] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

some  letters,  mainly  to  newspaper  people,  and  was 
already  making  progress  toward  what  might  be 
called  the  interior  circles  of  the  press,  which  are  so 
essential  to  the  success  of  a  newcomer  in  London. 
Charles  Reade  and  Andrew  Haliday  became  zeal- 
ous friends.  It  was  to  the  latter  that  he  owed  his 
introduction  to  the  Savage  Club.  Here  he  soon 
made  himself  at  home.  His  manners,  even  his 
voice,  were  half  English,  albeit  he  possessed  a  most 
engaging  disposition — a  ready  tact  and  keen  dis- 
cernment, very  un-English, — and  these  won  him 
an  efficient  corps  of  claquers  and  backers  through- 
out the  newspapers  and  periodicals  of  the  metrop- 
olis. Thus  his  success  was  assured  from  the  first. 
The  raw  November  evening  when  he  opened  at 
Egyptian  Hall  the  room  was  crowded  with  an 
audience  of  literary  men  and  women,  great  and 
small,  from  Swinburne  and  Edmund  Yates  to  the 
trumpeters  and  reporters  of  the  morning  papers. 
The  next  day  most  of  these  contained  glowing  ac- 
counts. The  Times  was  silent,  but  four  days  later 
The  Thunderer,  seeing  how  the  wind  blew,  came 
out  with  a  column  of  eulogy,  and  from  this  onward, 
each  evening  proved  a  kind  of  ovation.  Seats  were 
engaged  for  a  week  in  advance.     Up  and  down 

[107] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Piccadilly,  from  St.  James  Church  to  St.  James 
Street,  carriages  bearing  the  first  arms  in  the 
kingdom  were  parked  night  after  night;  and  the 
evening  of  the  21st  of  December,  six  weeks  after, 
there  was  no  falling  ofl.  The  success  was  com- 
plete. As  to  an  American,  London  had  never  seen 
the  like. 

All  this  while  the  poor  author  of  the  sport  was 
slowly  dying.  The  demands  upon  his  animal  spirits 
at  the  Savage  Club,  the  bodily  fatigue  of  "getting 
himself  up  to  it,"  the  "damnable  iteration"  of  the 
lecture  itself,  wore  him  out.  George,  his  valet, 
whom  he  had  brought  from  America,  had  finally  to 
lift  him  about  his  bedroom  like  a  child.  His  quar- 
ters in  Picadilly,  as  I  have  said,  were  just  opposite 
the  Hall,  but  he  could  not  go  backward  and  for- 
ward without  assistance.  It  was  painful  in  the  ex- 
treme to  see  the  man  who  was  undergoing  tortures 
behind  the  curtain  step  lightly  before  the  audience 
amid  a  burst  of  merriment,  and  for  more  than  an 
hour  sustain  the  part  of  jester,  tossing  his  cap  and 
jingling  his  bells,  a  painted  death's  head,  for  he 
had  to  rouge  his  face  to  hide  the  pallor. 

His  buoyancy  forsook  him.  He  was  occasionally 
nervous  and  fretful.  The  fog,  he  declared,  felt 
[108] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

like  a  winding  sheet,  enwrapping  and  strangling 
him.  At  one  of  his  entertainments  he  made  a  grim, 
serio-comic  allusion  to  this.  "But,"  cried  he  as  he 
came  off  the  stage,  "that  was  not  a  hit,  was  it? 
The  English  are  scary  about  death.  I'll  have  to 
cut  it  out." 

He  had  become  a  contributor  to  Punch,  a  lucky 
rather  than  smart  business  stroke,  for  it  was  not  of 
his  own  initiation.  He  did  not  continue  his  con- 
tributions after  he  began  to  appear  before  the  pub- 
lic, and  the  discontinuance  was  made  the  occasion  of 
some  ill-natured  remarks  in  certain  American 
papers,  which  very  much  wounded  him.  They 
were  largely  circulated  and  credited  at  the  time,  the 
charge  being  that  Messrs.  Bradbury  and  Evans, 
the  publishers  of  the  English  charivari,  had  broken 
with  him  because  the  English  would  not  have  him. 
The  truth  is  that  their  original  proposal  was  made 
to  him,  not  by  him  to  them,  the  price  named 
being  fifteen  guineas  a  letter.  He  asked  permis- 
sion to  duplicate  the  arrangement  with  some  New 
York  periodical,  so  as  to  secure  an  American  copy- 
right. This  they  refused.  I  read  the  correspond- 
ence at  the  time.    "Our  aim,"  they  said,  "in  mak- 

[109] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ing  the  engagement,  had  reference  to  our  own  cir- 
culation in  the  United  States,  which  exceeds  twenty- 
seven  thousand  weekly." 

I  suggested  to  Artemus  that  he  enter  his  book, 
"Artemus  Ward  in  London,"  in  advance,  and  he 
did  write  to  Oakey  Hall,  his  New  York  lawyer,  to 
that  effect.  Before  he  received  an  answer  from 
Hall  he  got  Carleton's  advertisement  announcing 
the  book.  Considering  this  a  piratical  design  on  the 
part  of  Carleton,  he  addressed  that  enterprising 
publisher  a  savage  letter,  but  the  matter  was 
ultimately  cleared  up  to  his  satisfaction,  for  he 
said  just  before  we  parted:  "It  was  all  a  mistake 
about  Carleton.  I  did  him  an  injustice  and  mean 
to  ask  his  pardon.  He  has  behaved  very  hand- 
somely to  me."     Then  the  letters  reappeared  in 

Punch. 

v 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  them  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic,  their  success  in  England  was  un- 
deniable. They  were  more  talked  about  than  any 
current  literary  matter;  never  a  club  gathering  or 
dinner  party  at  which  they  were  not  discussed. 
There  did  seem  something  both  audacious  and 
grotesque  in  this  ruthless  Yankee  poking  in  among 
[110] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  revered  antiquities  of  Britain,  so  that  the  beef- 
eating  British  themselves  could  not  restrain  their 
laughter.  They  took  his  jokes  in  excellent  part. 
The  letters  on  the  Tower  and  Chawsir  were  palpa- 
ble hits,  and  it  was  generally  agreed  that  Punch  had 
contained  nothing  better  since  the  days  of  Yellow- 
plush.  This  opinion  was  not  confined  to  the  man 
in  the  street.  It  was  shared  by  the  high-brows  of 
the  reviews  and  the  appreciative  of  society,  and 
gained  Artemus  the  entree  wherever  he  cared  to  go. 
Invitations  pursued  him  and  he  was  even  elected 
to  two  or  three  fashionable  clubs.  But  he  had  a 
preference  for  those  which  were  less  conventional. 
His  admission  to  the  Garrick,  which  had  been 
at  first  "laid  over,"  affords  an  example  of  London 
club  fastidiousness.  The  gentleman  who  proposed 
him  used  his  pseudonym,  Artemus  Ward,  instead 
of  his  own  name,  Charles  P.  Browne.  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  introducing  him  to  Mr.  Alexander  Mac- 
millan,  the  famous  book  publisher  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  a  leading  member  of  the  Garrick.  We 
dined  together  at  the  Garrick  clubhouse,  when  the 
matter  was  brought  up  and  explained.  The  result 
was  that  Charles  F.  Browne  was  elected  at  the  next 

[111] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

meeting,  where  Artemus  Ward,  had  been  made  to 
stand  aside. 

Before  Christmas,  Artemus  received  invitations 
from  distinguished  people,  nobility  and  gentry  as 
well  as  men  of  letters,  to  spend  the  week-end  with 
them.  But  he  declined  them  all.  He  needed  his 
vacation,  he  said,  for  rest.  He  had  neither  the 
strength  nor  the  spirit  for  the  season. 

Yet  was  he  delighted  with  the  English  people 
and  with  English  life.  His  was  one  of  those  re- 
ceptive natures  which  enjoy  whatever  is  wholesome 
and  sunny.  In  spite  of  his  bodily  pain,  he  enter- 
tained a  lively  hope  of  coming  out  of  it  in  the 
spring,  and  did  not  realize  his  true  condition.  He 
merely  said,  "I  have  overworked  myself,  and  must 
lay  by  or  I  shall  break  down  altogether."  He  meant 
to  remain  in  London  as  long  as  his  welcome  lasted, 
and  when  he  perceived  a  falling  off  in  his  audience, 
would  close  his  season  and  go  to  the  continent. 
His  receipts  averaged  about  three  hundred  dollars 
a  night,  whilst  his  expenses  were  not  fifty  dollars. 
"This,  mind  you,"  he  used  to  say,  "is  in  very  hard 
cash,  an  article  altogether  superior  to  that  of  my 
friend  Charles  Reade." 

His  idea  was  to  set  aside  out  of  his  earnings 
[112] 


ARTE  MAS   WARD 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

enough  to  make  him  independent,  and  then  to  give 
up  "this  mountebank  business,"  as  he  called  it.  He 
had  a  great  respect  for  scholarly  culture  and  per- 
sonal respectability,  and  thought  that  if  he  could 
get  time  and  health  he  might  do  something  "in  the 
genteel  comedy  line."  He  had  a  humorous  novel 
in  view,  and  a  series  of  more  aspiring  comic  essays 
than  any  he  had  attempted. 

Often  he  alluded  to  the  opening  for  an  American 
magazine,  "not  quite  so  highfalutin  as  the  Atlantic 
nor  so  popular  as  Harper's."  His  mind  was  begin- 
ning to  soar  above  the  showman  and  merrymaker. 
His  manners  had  always  been  captivating.  Except 
for  the  nervous  worry  of  ill-health,  he  was  the  kind- 
hearted,  unaffected  Artemus  of  old,  loving  as  a 
girl  and  liberal  as  a  prince.  He  once  showed  me 
his  daybook  in  which  were  noted  down  over  five 
hundred  dollars  lent  out  in  small  sums  to  indigent 
Americans. 

"Why,"  said  I,  "you  will  never  get  half  of  it 
back." 

"Of  course  not,"  he  said,  "but  do  you  think  I 
can  afford  to  have  a  lot  of  loose  fellows  black- 
guarding me  at  home  because  I  wouldn't  let  them 
have  a  sovereign  or  so  over  here  ?" 

[113] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

There  was  no  lack  of  independence,  however, 
about  him.  The  benefit  which  he  gave  Mrs.  Jeffer- 
son Davis  in  New  Orleans,  which  was  denounced 
at  the  North  as  toadying  to  the  Rebels,  proceeded 
from  a  wholly  different  motive.  He  took  a  kindly 
interest  in  the  case  because  it  was  represented  to 
him  as  one  of  suffering,  and  knew  very  well  at 
the  time  that  his  bounty  would  meet  with  detrac- 
tion. 

He  used  to  relate  with  gusto  an  interview  he  once 
had  with  Murat  Halstead,  who  had  printed  a  tart 
paragraph  about  him.  He  went  into  the  office  of 
the  Cincinnati  editor,  and  began  in  his  usual  jocose 
way  to  ask  for  the  needful  correction.  Halstead 
resented  the  proffered  familiarity,  when  Artemus 
told  him  flatly,  suddenly  changing  front,  that  he 
"didn't  care  a  d — n  for  the  Commercial,  and  the 
whole  establishment  might  go  to  hell."  Next  day 
the  paper  appeared  with  a  handsome  amende,  and 
the  two  became  excellent  friends.  "I  have  no 
doubt,"  said  Artemus,  "that  if  I  had  whined  or 
begged,  I  should  have  disgusted  Halstead,  and  he 
would  have  put  it  to  me  tighter.  As  it  was,  he  con- 
cluded that  I  was  not  a  sneak,  and  treated  me  like 
a  gentleman." 
[114] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Artemus  received  many  tempting  offers  from 
book  publishers  in  London.  Several  of  the  Annuals 
for  1866-67  contain  sketches,  some  of  them  anony- 
mous, written  by  him,  for  all  of  which  he  was  well 
paid.  He  wrote  for  Fun — the  editor  of  which, 
Mr.  Tom  Hood,  son  of  the  great  humorist,  was 
an  intimate  friend — as  well  as  for  Punch;  his  con- 
tributions to  the  former  being  printed  without  his 
signature.  If  he  had  been  permitted  to  remain 
until  the  close  of  his  season,  he  would  have  earned 
enough,  with  what  he  had  already,  to  attain  the  in- 
dependence which  was  his  aim  and  hope.  His  best 
friends  in  London  were  Charles  Reade,  Tom  Hood, 
Tom  Robertson,  the  dramatist,  Charles  Mathews, 
the  comedian,  Tom  Taylor  and  Arthur  Sketchley. 
He  did  not  meet  Mr.  Dickens,  though  Mr.  Andrew 
Haliday,  Dickens'  familiar,  was  also  his  intimate. 
He  was  much  persecuted  by  lion  hunters,  and 
therefore  had  to  keep  his  lodgings  something  of  a 
mystery. 

So  little  is  known  of  Artemus  Ward  that  some 
biographic  particulars  may  not  in  this  connection 
be  out  of  place  or  lacking  in  interest. 

Charles  F.  Browne  was  born  at  Waterford, 
Maine,  the  15th  of  July,  1833.    His  father  was  a 

[115] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

state  senator,  a  probate  judge,  and  at  one  time  a 
wealthy  citizen;  but  at  his  death,  when  his  famous 
son  was  yet  a  lad,  left  his  family  little  or  no  prop- 
erty. Charles  apprenticed  himself  to  a  printer,  and 
served  out  his  time,  first  in  Springfield  and  then  in 
Boston.  In  the  latter  city  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Shilaber,  Ben  Perley  Poore,  Halpine,  and 
others,  and  tried  his  hand  as  a  "sketchist"  for  a 
volume  edited  by  Mrs.  Partington.  His  early  ef- 
fusions bore  the  signature  of  "Chub."  From  the 
Hub  he  emigrated  to  the  West.  At  Toledo,  Ohio, 
he  worked  as  a  "typo"  and  later  as  a  "local"  on  a 
Toledo  newspaper.  Then  he  went  to  Cleveland, 
where  as  city  editor  of  the  Plain  Dealer  he  began 
the  peculiar  vein  from  which  still  later  he  worked 
so  successfully. 

The  soubriquet  "Artemus  Ward,"  was  not  taken 
from  the  Revolutionary  general.  It  was  suggested 
by  an  actual  personality.  In  an  adjoining  town  to 
Cleveland  there  was  a  snake  charmer  who  called 
himself  Artemus  Ward,  an  ignorant  witling  or 
half-wit,  the  laughing  stock  of  the  countryside. 
Browne's  first  communication  over  the  signature  of 
Artemus  Ward  purported  to  emanate  from  this 
person,  and  it  succeeded  so  well  that  he  kept  it  up. 
[116] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

He  widened  the  conception  as  he  progressed.  It 
was  not  long  before  his  sketches  began  to  be  copied 
and  he  became  a  newspaper  favorite.  He  remained 
in  Cleveland  from  1857  to  1860,  when  he  was  called 
to  New  York  to  take  the  editorship  of  a  venture 
called  Vanity  Fair.  This  died  soon  after.  But  he 
did  not  die  with  it.  A  year  later,  in  the  fall  of 
1861,  he  made  his  appearance  as  a  lecturer  at  New 
London,  and  met  with  encouragement.  Then  he 
set  out  en  tour,  returned  to  the  metropolis,  hired  a 
hall  and  opened  with  "the  show."  Thence  onward 
all  went  well. 

The  first  money  he  made  was  applied  to  the  pur- 
chase of  the  old  family  homestead  in  Maine,  which 
he  presented  to  his  mother.  The  payments  on  this 
being  completed,  he  bought  himself  a  little  nest  on 
the  Hudson,  meaning,  as  he  said,  to  settle  down  and 
perhaps  to  marry.  But  his  dreams  were  not  destined 
to  be  fulfilled. 

Thus,  at  the  outset  of  a  career  from  which  much 
was  to  be  expected,  a  man,  possessed  of  rare  and 
original  qualities  of  head  and  heart,  sank  out  of  the 
sphere  in  which  at  that  time  he  was  the  most  promi- 
nent figure.     There  was  then  no  Mark  Twain  or 

[117] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Bret  Harte.  His  rivals  were  such  humorists  as 
Orpheus  C.  Kerr,  Nasby,  Asa  Hartz,  The  Fat  Con- 
tributor, John  Happy,  Mrs.  Partington,  Bill  Arp 
and  the  like,  who  are  now  mostly  forgotten. 

Artemus  Ward  wrote  little,  but  he  made  good 
and  left  his  mark.  Along  with  the  queer  John 
Phoenix  his  writings  survived  the  deluge  that  fol- 
lowed them.  He  poured  out  the  wine  of  life  in  a 
limpid  stream.  It  may  be  fairly  said  that  he  did 
much  to  give  permanency  and  respectability  to  the 
style  of  literature  of  which  he  was  at  once  a  brilliant 
illustrator  and  illustration.  His  was  a  short  life 
indeed,  though  a  merry  one,  and  a  sad  death.  In 
a  strange  land,  yet  surrounded  by  admiring  friends, 
about  to  reach  the  coveted  independence  he  had 
looked  forward  to  so  long,  he  sank  to  rest,  his  dust 
mingling  with  that  of  the  great  Thomas  Hood, 
alongside  of  whom  he  was  laid  in  Kensal  Green. 


[118] 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 

MARK    TWAIN — THE    ORIGINAL    OF    COLONEL    MUL- 
BERRY   SELLERS THE    "EARL    OF    DURHAM^ 

SOME      NOCTES      AMBROSIANAE — A      JOKE      ON 
MURAT  HALSTEAD 


MARK  TWAIN"  came  down  to  the  footlights 
long  after  Artemus  Ward  had  passed  fromN 
the  scene ;  but  as  an  American  humorist  with  whom  J 
during  half  a  century  I  was  closely  intimate  and  J 
round  whom  many  of  my  London  experiences  re- 
volve, it  may  be  apropos  to  speak  of  him  next  after 
his  elder.    There  was  not  lacking  a  certain  likeness 
between  them. 

Samuel  L.  Clemens  and  I  were  connected  by  a 
domestic  tie,  though  before  either  of  us  were  born 
the  two  families  on  the  maternal  side  had  been 
neighbors  and  friends.  An  uncle  of  his  married  an 
aunt  of  mine — the  children  of  this  marriage  cousins 
in  common  to  us — albeit,  this  apart,  we  were  life- 

[119] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

time  cronies.  He  always  contended  that  we  were 
"bloodkin." 

Notwithstanding  that  when  Mark  Twain  ap- 
peared east  of  the  Alleghanies  and  north  of  the 
Blue  Ridge  he  showed  the  weather-beating  of  the 
west,  the  bizarre  alike  of  the  pilot  house  and  the 
mining  camp  very  much  in  evidence,  he  came  of 
decent  people  on  both  sides  of  the  house.  The 
Clemens  and  the  Lamptons  were  of  good  old  Eng- 
lish stock.  Toward  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  three  younger  scions  of  the  Manor  of  Dur- 
ham migrated  from  the  County  of  Durham  to 
Virginia  and  thence  branched  out  into  Tennessee, 
Kentucky  and  Missouri. 

His  mother  was  the  loveliest  old  aristocrat  with 
a  taking  drawl,  a  drawl  that  was  high-bred  and 
patrician,  not  rustic  and  plebeian,  which  her  famous 
son  inherited.  All  the  women  of  that  ilk  were 
gentlewomen.  The  literary  and  artistic  instinct 
which  attained  its  fruition  in  him  had  percolated 
through  the  veins  of  a  long  line  of  silent  singers, 
of  poets  and  painters,  unborn  to  the  world  of  ex- 
pression till  he  arrived  upon  the  scene. 

These  joint  cousins  of  ours  embraced  an  exceed- 
ingly large,  varied  and  picturesque  assortment. 
[120] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Their  idiosyncrasies  were  a  constant  source  of 
amusement  to  us.  Just  after  the  successful  pro- 
duction of  his  play,  The  Gilded  Age,  and  the  up- 
roarious hit  of  the  comedian,  Raymond,  in  the  lead- 
ing role,  I  received  a  letter  from  him  in  which  he 
told  me  he  had  made  in  Colonel  Mulberry  Sellers 
a  close  study  of  one  of  these  kinsmen  and  thought 
he  had  drawn  him  to  the  life.  "But  for  the  love 
o'  God,"  he  said,  "don't  whisper  it,  for  he  would 
never  understand  or  forgive  me,  if  he  did  not  thrash 
me  on  sight." 

The  pathos  of  the  part,  and  not  its  comic  aspects, 
had  most  impressed  him.  He  designed  and  wrote 
it  for  Edwin  Booth.  From  the  first  and  always 
he  was  disgusted  by  the  Raymond  portrayal.  Ex- 
cept for  its  popularity  and  money-making,  he 
would  have  withdrawn  it  from  the  stage  as,  in  a 
fit  of  pique,  Raymond  himself  did  while  it  was  still 
packing  the  theaters. 

The  original  Sellers  had  partly  brought  him  up 
and  had  been  very  good  to  him.  A  second  Don 
Quixote  in  appearance  and  not  unlike  the  knight  of 
La  Mancha  in  character,  it  would  have  been  safe 
for  nobody  to  laugh  at  James  L  ampton,  or  by  the 
slightest  intimation,  look  or  gesture  to  treat  him 

[121] 


"MARSE  HENRY'* 

with  inconsideration,  or  any  proposal  of  his,  how- 
ever preposterous,  with  levity. 

He  once  came  to  visit  me  upon  a  public  occasion 
and  during  a  function.  I  knew  that  I  must  intro- 
duce him,  and  with  all  possible  ceremony,  to  my 
colleagues.  He  was  very  queer;  tall  and  peaked, 
wearing  a  black,  swallow-tailed  suit,  shiny  with  age, 
and  a  silk  hat,  bound  with  black  crepe  to  conceal  its 
rustiness,  not  to  indicate  a  recent  death;  but  his 
linen  as  spotless  as  new-fallen  snow.  I  had  my 
fears.  Happily  the  company,  quite  dazed  by  the 
apparition,  proved  decorous  to  solemnity,  and  the 
kind  old  gentleman,  pleased  with  himself  and 
proud  of  his  "distinguished  young  kinsman,"  went 
away  highly  gratified. 

Not  long  after  this  one  of  his  daughters — pretty 
girls  they  were,  too,  and  in  charm  altogether 
worthy  of  their  Cousin  Sam  Clemens — was  to  be 
married,  and  Sellers  wrote  me  a  stately  summons, 
all-embracing,  though  stiff  and  formal,  such  as  a 
baron  of  the  Middle  Ages  might  have  indited  to  his 
noble  relative,  the  field  marshal,  bidding  him  bring 
his  good  lady  and  his  retinue  and  abide  within  the 
castle  until  the  festivities  were  ended,  though  in 
this  instance  the  castle  was  a  suburban  cottage 
[122] 


"MARSE  HEISTRY" 

scarcely  big  enough  to  accommodate  the  bridal 
couple.  I  showed  the  bombastic  but  hospitable  and 
genuine  invitation  to  the  actor  Raymond,  who 
chanced  to  be  playing  in  Louisville  when  it  reached 
me.    He  read  it  through  with  care  and  reread  it. 

"Do  you  know,"  said  he,  "it  makes  me  want  to 
cry.  That  is  not  the  man  I  am  trying  to  imper- 
sonate at  all." 

Be  sure  it  was  not;  for  there  was  nothing  funny 
about  the  spiritual  being  of  Mark  Twain's  Colonel 
Mulberry  Sellers ;  he  was  as  brave  as  a  lion  and  as 
upright  as  Sam  Clemens  himself. 

When  a  very  young  man,  living  in  a  woodland 
cabin  down  in  the  Pennyrile  region  of  Kentucky, 
with  a  wife  he  adored  and  two  or  three  small  chil- 
dren, he  was  so  carried  away  by  an  unexpected 
windfall  that  he  lingered  overlong  in  the  nearby 
village,  dispensing  a  royal  hospitality;  in  point  of 
fact,  he  "got  on  a  spree."  Two  or  three  days  passed 
before  he  regained  possession  of  himself.  When  at 
last  he  reached  home,  he  found  his  wife  ill  in  bed 
and  the  children  nearly  starved  for  lack  of  food. 
He  said  never  a  word,  but  walked  out  of  the  cabin, 
tied  himself  to  a  tree,  and  was  wildly  horsewhipping 
himself  when  the  cries  of  the  frightened  family  sum- 

[123} 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

moned  the  neighbors  and  he  was  brought  to  reason. 

He  never  touched  an  intoxicating  drop  from  that 

day  to  his  death. 

II 

Another  one  of  our  fantastic  mutual  cousins  was 
the  "Earl  of  Durham."  I  ought  to  say  that  Mark 
Twain  and  I  grew  up  on  old  wives'  tales  of  estates 
and  titles,  which,  maybe  due  to  a  kindred  sense  of 
humor  in  both  of  us,  we  treated  with  shocking 
irreverence.  It  happened  some  fifty  years  ago  that 
there  turned  up,  first  upon  the  plains  and  afterward 
in  New  York  and  Washington,  a  lineal  descendant 
of  the  oldest  of  the  Virginia  Lamptons — he  had 
somehow  gotten  hold  of  or  had  fabricated  a  bundle 
of  documents — who  was  what  a  certain  famous 
American  would  have  called  a  "corker."  He  wore 
a  sombrero  with  a  rattlesnake  for  a  band,  and  a  belt 
with  a  couple  of  six-shooters,  and  described  himself 
and  claimed  to  be  the  Earl  of  Durham. 

"He  touched  me  for  a  tenner  the  first  time  I  ever 
saw  him,"  drawled  Mark  to  me,  "and  I  coughed  it 
up  and  have  been  coughing  them  up,  whenever  he's 
around,  with  punctuality  and  regularity." 

The  "Earl"  was  indeed  a  terror,  especially  when 
he  had  been  drinking.  His  belief  in  his  peerage 
[124] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

was  as  absolute  as  Colonel  Sellers'  in  his  millions. 
All  he  wanted  was  money  enough  "to  get  over 
there"  and  "state  his  case."  During  the  Tichborne 
trial  Mark  Twain  and  I  were  in  London,  and  one 
day  he  said  to  me: 

"I  have  investigated  this  Durham  business  down 
at  the  Herald's  office.  There's  nothing  to  it.  The 
Lamptons  passed  out  of  the  Demesne  of  Durham  a 
hundred  years  ago.  They  had  long  before  dissi- 
pated the  estates.  Whatever  the  title,  it  lapsed. 
The  present  earldom  is  a  new  creation,  not  the 
same  family  at  all.  But,  I  tell  you  what,  if  you'll 
put  up  five  hundred  dollars  I'll  put  up  five  hundred 
more,  we'll  fetch  our  chap  across  and  set  him  in  as 
a  claimant,  and,  my  word  for  it,  Kenealy's  fat  boy 
won't  be  a  marker  to  him !" 

He  was  so  pleased  with  his  conceit  that  later 
along  he  wrote  a  novel  and  called  it  The  Claimant. 
It  is  the  only  one  of  his  books,  though  I  never  told 
him  so,  that  I  could  not  enjoy.  Many  years  after, 
I  happened  to  see  upon  a  hotel  register  in  Rome 
these  entries:  "The  Earl  of  Durham,"  and  in  the 
same  handwriting  just  below  it,  "Lady  Anne 
Lambton"  and  "The  Hon.  Reginald  Lambton." 
So  the  Lambtons — they  spelled  it  with  a  b  instead 

[125] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  a  p — were  yet  in  the  peerage.  A  Lambton  was 
Earl  of  Durham.  The  next  time  I  saw  Mark  I 
rated  him  on  his  deception.  He  did  not  defend 
himself,  said  something  about  its  being  necessary 
to  perfect  the  joke. 

"Did  you  ever  meet  this  present  peer  and  possible 
usurper?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  he  answered,  "I  never  did,  but  if  he  had 
called  on  me,  I  would  have  had  him  come  up." 

in 

His  mind  turned  ever  to  the  droll.  Once  in  Lon- 
don I  was  living  with  my  family  at  103  Mount 
Street.  Between  103  and  102  there  was  the 
parochial  workhouse,  quite  a  long  and  imposing 
edifice.  One  evening,  upon  coming  in  from  an  out- 
ing, I  found  a  letter  he  had  written  on  the  sitting- 
room  table.  He  had  left  it  with  his  card.  He  spoke 
of  the  shock  he  had  received  upon  finding  that  next 
to  102 — presumably  103 — was  the  workhouse.  He 
had  loved  me,  but  had  always  feared  that  I  would 
end  by  disgracing  the  family — being  hanged  or 
something — but  the  "work'us,"  that  was  beyond 
him ;  he  had  not  thought  it  would  come  to  that.  And 
so  on  through  pages  of  horseplay;  his  relief  on 
[126] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ascertaining  the  truth  and  learning  his  mistake,  his 
regret  at  not  finding  me  at  home,  closing  with  a 
dinner  invitation. 

It  was  at  Geneva,  Switzerland,  that  I  received  a 
long,  overflowing  letter,  full  of  flamboyant  oddi- 
ties, written  from  London.  Two  or  three  hours 
later  came  a  telegram.  "Burn  letter.  Blot  it  from 
your  memory.     Susie  is  dead." 

How  much  of  melancholy  lay  hidden  behind  the 
mask  of  his  humour  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  His 
griefs  were  tempered  by  a  vein  of  stoicism.  He 
was  a  medley  of  contradictions.  Unconventional 
to  the  point  of  eccentricity,  his  sense  of  his  proper 
dignity  was  sound  and  sufficient.  Though  lavish 
in  the  use  of  money,  he  had  a  full  realization  of  its 
value  and  made  close  contracts  for  his  work.  Like 
Sellers,  his  mind  soared  when  it  sailed  financial  cur- 
rents. He  lacked  acute  business  judgment  in  the 
larger  things,  while  an  excellent  economist  in  the 
lesser. 

His  marriage  was  the  most  brilliant  stroke  of  his 
life.  He  got  the  woman  of  all  the  world  he  most 
needed,  a  truly  lovely  and  wise  helpmate,  who  kept 
him  in  bounds  and  headed  him  straight  and  right 
while  she  lived.     She  was  the  best  of  housewives 

[127] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  mothers,  audi  the  safest  of  counsellors  and 
critics.  She  knew  his  worth;  she  appreciated  his 
genius;  she  understood  his  limitations  and  angles. 
Her  death  was  a  grievous  disaster  as  well  as  a 
staggering  blow.  He  never  wholly  recovered  from 
it. 

IV 

It  was  in  the  early  seventies  that  Mark  Twain 
dropped  into  New  York,  where  there  was  already 
gathered  a  congenial  group  to  meet  and  greet  him. 
John  Hay,  quoting  old  Jack  Dade's  description  of 
himself,  was  wont  to  speak  of  this  group  as  "of 
high  aspirations  and  peregrinations."  It  radiated 
between  Franklin  Square,  where  Joseph  W.  Har- 
per— "Joe  Brooklyn,"  we  called  him — reigned  in 
place  of  his  uncle,  Fletcher  Harper,  the  man  of 
genius  among  the  original  Harper  Brothers,  and 
the  Lotos  Club,  then  in  Irving  Place,  and  Delmoni- 
co's,  at  the  corner  of  Fifth  Avenue  and  Fourteenth 
Street,  with  Sutherland's  in  Liberty  Street  for  a 
downtown  place  of  luncheon  resort,  not  to  forget 
Dorlon's  in  Fulton  Market. 

The  Harper  contingent,  beside  its  chief,  em- 
braced Tom  Nast  and  William  A.  Seaver,  whom 
John  Russell  Young  named  "Papa  Pendennis," 
[128] 


GENERAL   LEONIDAS   POLK LIEUTENANT  GENERAL 

C.    S.    A. KILLED    IN    GEORGIA    JUNE    14,    1864 

P.    E.    BISHOP    OF    LOUISIANA 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  pictured  as  "a  man  of  letters  among  men  of 
the  world  and  a  man  of  the  world  among  men  of 
letters,"  a  very  apt  phrase  appropriated  from  Doc- 
tor Johnson,  and  Major  Constable,  a  giant,  who 
looked  like  a  dragoon  and  not  a  bookman,  yet  had 
known  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  was  sprung  from  the 
family  of  Edinburgh  publishers.  Bret  Harte  had 
but  newly  arrived  from  California.  Whitelaw 
Reid,  though  still  subordinate  to  Greeley,  was  be- 
ginning to  make  himself  felt  in  journalism.  John 
Hay  played  high  priest  to  the  revels.  Occasionally 
I  made  a  pious  pilgrimage  to  the  delightful  shrine. 
Truth  to  tell,  it  emulated  rather  the  gods  than 
the  graces,  though  all  of  us  had  literary  leanings  of 
one  sort  and  another,  especially  late  at  night;  and 
Sam  Bowles  would  come  over  from  Springfield 
and  Murat  Halstead  from  Cincinnati  to  join  us. 
Howells,  always  something  of  a  prig,  living  in  Bos- 
ton, held  himself  at  too  high  account ;  but  often  we 
had  Joseph  Jefferson,  then  in  the  heyday  of  his 
career,  with  once  in  a  while  Edwin  Booth,  who 
could  not  quite  trust  himself  to  go  our  gait.  The 
fine  fellows  we  caught  from  oversea  were  innumer- 
able, from  the  elder  Sothern  and  Sala  and  Yates 
to  Lord  Dufferin  and  Lord  Houghton.     Times 

[129] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

went  very  well  those  days,  and  whilst  some  looked 
on  askance,  notably  Curtis  and,  rather  oddly,  Sted- 
man,  and  thought  we  were  wasting  time  and  con- 
vivializing  more  than  was  good  for  us,  we  were 
mostly  young  and  hearty,  ranging  from  thirty  to 
five  and  forty  years  of  age,  with  amazing  capabili- 
ties both  for  work  and  play,  and  I  cannot  recall 
that  any  hurt  to  any  of  us  came  of  it. 

Although  robustious,,  our  fribbles  were  harm- 
less enough — ebullitions  of  animal  spirit,  some- 
times perhaps  of  gaiety  unguarded — though  each 
shade,  treading  the  Celestian  way,  as  most  of  them 
do,  and  recurring  to  those  Noctes  Ambrosianae, 
might  e'en  repeat  to  the  other  the  words  on  a  mem- 
orable occasion  addressed  by  Curran  to  Lord 
Avonmore : 

eeWe  spent  them,  not  in  toys  or  lust  or  wine; 

But  search  of  deep  philosophy, 

Wit,  eloquence  and  poesy — 

Arts  which  I  loved,  for  they,  my  friend,  were  thine" 


Mark  Twain  was  the  life  of  every  company  and 
all  occasions.     I  remember  a  practical  joke  of  his 
[130] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

suggestion  played  upon  Murat  Halstead.  A  party 
of  us  were  supping  after  the  theater  at  the  old 
Brevoort  House.  A  card  was  brought  to  me  from 
a  reporter  of  the  World.  I  was  about  to  deny 
myself,  when  Mark  Twain  said: 

"Give  it  to  me,  I'll  fix  it,"  and  left  the  table. 

Presently  he  came  to  the  door  and  beckoned  me 
out. 

"I  represented  myself  as  your  secretary  and  told 
this  man,"  said  he,  "that  you  were  not  here,  but 
that  if  Mr.  Halstead  would  answer  just  as  well  I 
would  fetch  him,  The  fellow  is  as  innocent  as  a  lamb 
and  doesn't  know  either  of  you.  I  am  going  to 
introduce  you  as  Halstead  and  we'll  have  some 
fun." 

No  sooner  said  than  done.  The  reporter  proved 
to  be  a  little  bald-headed  cherub  newly  arrived  from 
the  isle  of  dreams,  and  I  lined  out  to  him  a  column 
or  more  of  very  hot  stuff,  reversing  Halstead  in 
every  opinion.  I  declared  him  in  favor  of  paying 
the  national  debt  in  greenbacks.  Touching  the  sec- 
tional question,  which  was  then  the  burning  issue 
of  the  time,  I  made  the  mock  Halstead  say:  "The 
'bloody  shirt'  is  only  a  kind  of  Pickwickian  battle 
cry.    It  is  convenient  during  political  campaigns 

[131] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  on  election  day.  Perhaps  you  do  not  know 
that  I  am  myself  of  dyed-in-the-wool  Southern  and 
secession  stock.  My  father  and  grandfather  came 
to  Ohio  from  South  Carolina  just  before  I  was 
born.  Naturally  I  have  no  sectional  prejudices, 
but  I  live  in  Cincinnati  and  I  am  a  Republican." 

There  was  not  a  little  more  of  the  same  sort. 
Just  how  it  passed  through  the  World  office  I 
know  not;  but  it  actually  appeared.  On  returning 
to  the  table  I  told  the  company  what  Mark  Twain 
and  I  had  done.  They  thought  I  was  joking. 
Without  a  word  to  any  of  us,  next  day  Halstead 
wrote  a  note  to  the  World  repudiating  the  inter- 
view, and  the  World  printed  his  disclaimer  with 
a  line  which  said:  "When  Mr.  Halstead  conversed 
with  our  reporter  he  had  dined."  It  was  too  good 
to  keep.  A  day  or  two  later,  John  Hay  wrote  an 
amusing  story  for  the  Tribune,  which  set  Halstead 
right. 

Mark  Twain's  place  in  literature  is  not  for  me 
to  fix.  Some  one  has  called  him  "The  Lincoln  of 
letters."  That  is  striking,  suggestive  and  apposite. 
The  genius  of  Clemens  and  the  genius  of  Lincoln 
possessed  a  kinship  outside  the  circumstances  of 
their  early  lives ;  the  common  lack  of  tools  to  work 
[132] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

with;  the  privations  and  hardships  to  be  endured 
and  to  overcome;  the  way  ahead  through  an  un- 
blazed  and  trackless  forest;  every  footstep  over  a 
stumbling  block  and  each  effort  saddled  with  a 
handicap.  But  they  got  there,  both  of  them,  they 
got  there,  and  mayhap  somewhere  beyond  the  stars 
the  light  of  their  eyes  is  shining  down  upon  us 
even  as,  amid  the  thunders  of  a  world  tempest,  we 
are  not  wholly  forgetful  of  them. 


[133] 


CHAPTER  THE  SIXTH 

HOUSTON     AND     WIGFALL     OF     TEXAS — STEPHEN    A. 

DOUGLAS THE  TWADDLE  ABOUT  PURITANS  AND 

CAVALIERS — ANDREW    JOHNSON    AND    JOHN    C 
BRECKENRIDGE 


THE  National  Capitol — old  men's  fancies 
fondly  turn  to  thoughts  of  youth  —  was 
picturesque  in  its  personalities  if  not  in  its  architec- 
ture. By  no  means  the  least  striking  of  these  was 
General  and  Senator  Sam  Houston,  of  Texas.  In 
his  life  of  adventure  truth  proved  very  much 
stranger  than  fiction. 

The  handsomest  of  men,  tall  and  stately,  he  could 
pass  no  way  without  attracting  attention ;  strangers 
in  the  Senate  gallery  first  asked  to  have  him  pointed 
out  to  them,  and  seeing  him  to  all  appearance 
idling  his  time  with  his  jacknife  and  bits  of  soft 
wood  which  he  whittled  into  various  shapes  of 
hearts  and  anchors  for  distribution  among  his  lady 
[134] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

acquaintances,  they  usually  went  away  thinking 
him  a  queer  old  man.  So  inded  he  was;  yet  on  his 
feet  and  in  action  singularly  impressive,  and,  when 
he  chose,  altogether  the  statesman  and  orator. 

There  united  in  him  the  spirits  of  the  troubadour 
and  the  spearman.  Ivanhoe  was  not  more  gallant 
nor  Rois-Guilbert  fiercer.  But  the  valor  and  the 
prowess  were  tempered  by  humor.  Below  the  surg- 
ing subterranean  flood  that  stirred  and  lifted  him 
to  high  attempt,  he  was  a  comedian  who  had  tales 
to  tell,  and  told  them  wondrous  well.  On  a  lazy 
summer  afternoon  on  the  shady  side  of  Willard's 
Hotel — the  Senate  not  in  session — he  might  be 
seen,  an  admiring  group  about  him,  spinning  these 
yarns,  mostly  of  personal  experience — rarely  if 
ever  repeating  himself — and  in  tone,  gesture  and 
grimace  reproducing  the  drolleries  of  the  back- 
woods, which  from  boyhood  had  been  his  home. 

He  spared  not  himself.  According  to  his  own 
account  he  had  been  in  the  early  days  of  his  Texas 
career  a  drunkard.  "Everybody  got  drunk,"  I  once 
heard  him  say,  referring  to  the  beginning  of  the 
Texas  revolution,  as  he  gave  a  side-splitting  picture 
of  that  bloody  episode,  "and  I  realized  that  some- 
body must  get  sober  and  keep  sober." 

[135] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

From  the  hour  of  that  realization,  when  he 
"swore  off,"  to  the  hour  of  his  death  he  never 
touched  intoxicants  of  any  sort. 

He  had  fought  under  Jackson,  had  served  two 
terms  in  Congress  and  had  been  elected  governor 
of  Tennessee  before  he  was  forty.  Then  he  fell  in 
love.  The  young  lady  was  a  beautiful  girl,  well- 
born and  highly  educated,  a  schoolmate  of  my 
mother's  elder  sister.  She  was  persuaded  by  her 
family  to  throw  over  an  obscure  young  man  whom 
she  preferred,  and  to  marry  a  young  man  so  eligible 
and  distinguished. 

He  took  her  to  Nashville,  the  state  capital. 
There  were  rounds  of  gayety.  Three  months 
passed.  Of  a  sudden  the  little  town  woke  to  the 
startling  rumor,  which  proved  to  be  true,  that  the 
brilliant  young  couple  had  come  to  a  parting  of 
the  ways.  The  wife  had  returned  to  her  people. 
The  husband  had  resigned  his  office  and  was  gone, 
no  one  knew  where. 

A  few  years  later  Mrs.  Houston  applied  for  a 
divorce,  which  in  those  days  had  to  be  granted  by 
the  state  legislature.  Inevitably  reports  derogatory 
to  her  had  got  abroad.  Almost  the  first  tidings 
of  Governor  Houston's  whereabouts  were  con- 
[186]' 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

tained  in  a  letter  he  wrote  from  somewhere  in  the 
Indian  country  to  my  father,  a  member  of  the  legis- 
lature to  whom  Mrs.  Houston  had  applied,  in  which 
he  said  that  these  reports  had  come  to  his  ears. 
"They  are,"  he  wrote,  "as  false  as  hell.  If  they  be 
not  stopped  I  will  return  to  Tennessee  and  have 
the  heart's  blood  of  him  who  repeats  them.  A 
nobler,  purer  woman  never  lived.  She  should  be 
promptly  given  the  divorce  she  asks.  I  alone  am 
to  blame." 

She  married  again,  though  not  the  lover  she  had 
discarded.  I  knew  her  in  her  old  age — a  gentle, 
placid  lady,  in  whose  face  I  used  to  fancy  I  could 
read  lines  of  sorrow  and  regret.  He,  to  close  this 
chapter,  likewise  married  again  a  wise  and 
womanly  woman  who  bore  him  many  children  and 
with  whom  he  lived  happy  ever  after.  Meanwhile, 
however,  he  had  dwelt  with  the  Indians  and  had 
become  an  Indian  chief.  "Big  Drunk,  they  called 
me,"  he  said  to  his  familiars.  His  enemies  averred 
that  he  brought  into  the  world  a  whole  tribe  of  half- 
breeds. 

II 

Houston  was  a  rare  performer  before  a  popular 
audience.    His  speech  abounded  with  argumenta- 

{137] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

tive  appeal  and  bristled  with  illustrative  anecdote, 
and,  when  occasion  required,  with  apt  repartee. 

Once  an  Irishman  in  the  crowd  bawled  out,  "ye 
were  goin'  to  sell  Texas  to  England." 

Houston  paused  long  enough  to  center  attention 
upon  the  quibble  and  then  said:  "My  friend,  I  first 
tried,  unsuccessfully,  to  have  the  United  States  take 
Texas  as  a  gift.  Not  until  I  threatened  to  turn 
Texas  over  to  England  did  I  finally  succeed.  There 
may  be  within  the  sound  of  my  voice  some  who 
have  knowledge  of  sheep  culture.  They  have  doubt- 
less seen  a  motherless  lamb  put  to  the  breast  of  a 
cross  old  ewe  who  refused  it  suck.  Then  the  wise 
shepherd  calls  his  dog  and  there  is  no  further 
trouble.    My  friend,  England  was  my  dog." 

He  was  inveighing  against  the  New  York 
Tribune.  Having  described  Horace  Greeley  as 
the  sum  of  all  villainy — "whose  hair  is  white,  whose 
skin  is  white,  whose  eyes  are  white,  whose  clothes 
are  white,  and  whose  liver  is  in  my  opinion  of  the 
same  color" — he  continued:  "The  assistant  editor 
of  the  Try-bune  is  Robinson — Solon  Robinson. 
He  is  an  Irishman,  an  Orange  Irishman,  a  red- 
haired  Irishman!"  Casting  his  eye  over  the  audi- 
ence and  seeing  quite  a  sprinkling  of  redheads,  and 
[138] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

realizing  that  he  had  prepetrated  a  slip  of  tongue, 
he  added:  "Fellow  citizens,  when  I  say  that  Rob- 
inson is  a  red-haired  Irishman  I  mean  no  disrespect 
to  persons  whose  hair  is  of  that  color.  I  have  been 
a  close  observer  of  men  and  women  for  thirty 
years,  and  I  never  knew  a  red-haired  man  who  was 
not  an  honest  man,  nor  a  red-headed  woman  who 
was  not  a  virtuous  woman ;  and  I  give  it  you  as  my 
candid  opinion  that  had  it  not  been  for  Robinson's 
red  hair  he  would  have  been  hanged  long  ago." 

His  pathos  was  not  far  behind  his  humor — 
though  he  used  it  sparingly.  At  a  certain  town  in 
Texas  there  lived  a  desperado  who  had  threatened 
to  kill  him  on  sight.  The  town  was  not  on  the 
route  of  his  speaking  dates  but  he  went  out  of  his 
way  to  include  it.  A  great  concourse  assembled 
to  hear  him.  He  spoke  in  the  open  air  and,  as  he 
began,  observed  his  man  leaning  against  a  tree 
armed  to  the  teeth  and  waiting  for  him  to  finish. 
After  a  few  opening  remarks,  he  dropped  into  the 
reminiscential.  He  talked  of  the  old  times  in 
Texas.  He  told  in  thrilling  terms  of  the  Alamo 
and  of  Goliad.  There  was  not  a  dry  eye  in  earshot. 
Then  he  grew  personal. 

"I  see  Tom  Gilligan  over  yonder.    A  braver  man 

[139] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

never  lived  than  Tom  Gilligan.  He  fought  by  my 
side  at  San  Jacinto.  Together  we  buried  poor  Bill 
Holman.  Rut  for  his  skill  and  courage  I  should 
not  be  here  to-day.    He " 

There  was  a  stir  in  front.  Gilligan  had  thrown 
away  his  knife  and  gun  and  was  rushing  unarmed 
through  the  crowd,  tears  streaming  down  his  face. 

"For  God's  sake,  Houston,"  he  cried,  "don't  say 
another  word  and  forgive  me  my  cowardly  inten- 
tion." 

From  that  time  to  his  death  Tom  Gilligan  was 
Houston's  devoted  friend. 

General  Houston  vcfted  against  the  Kansas'- 
Nebraska  Bill,  and  as  a  consequence  lost  his  seat 
in  the  Senate.  It  was  thought,  and  freely  said, 
that  for  good  and  all  he  was  down  and  out.  He 
went  home  and  announced  himself  a  candidate  for 
governor  of  Texas. 

The  campaign  that  followed  was  of  unexampled 
bitterness.  The  secession  wave  was  already  mount- 
ing high.  Houston  was  an  uncompromising  Union- 
ist. His  defeat  was  generally  expected.  But  there 
was  no  beating  such  a  man  in  a  fair  and  square  con- 
test before  the  people.  When  the  votes  were 
counted  he  led  his  competitor  by  a  big  majority. 
[140] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

As  governor  he  refused  two  years  later  to  sign  the 

ordinance  of  secession  and  was  deposed  from  office 

by  force.    He  died  before  the  end  of  the  war  which 

so  signally  vindicated  his  wisdom  and  verified  his 

forecast. 

ill 

Stephen  Arnold  Douglas  was  the  Charles  James 
Fox  of  American  politics.  He  was  not  a  gambler 
as  Fox  was.  But  he  went  the  other  gaits  and  was 
possessed  of  a  sweetness  of  disposition  which  made 
him,  like  Fox,  loved  where  he  was  personally 
known.  No  one  could  resist  the  bonhomie  of 
Douglas. 

They  are  not  all  Puritans  in  New  England. 
Catch  a  Yankee  off  his  base,  quite  away  from  home, 
and  he  can  be  as  gay  as  anybody.  Boston  and 
Charleston  were  in  high  party  times  nearest  alike 
of  any  two  American  cities. 

Douglas  was  a  Green  Mountain  boy.  He  was 
born  in  Vermont.  As  Seargent  Prentiss  had  done 
he  migrated  beyond  the  Alleghanies  before  he  came 
of  age,  settling  in  Illinois  as  Prentiss  had  settled 
in  Mississippi,  to  grow  into  a  typical  Westerner  as 
Prentiss  into  a  typical  Southerner. 

There  was  never  a  more  absurd  theory  than  that, 

[141] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

begot  of  sectional  aims  and  the  sectional  spirit, 
which  proposed  a  geographic  alignment  of  Cavalier 
and  Puritan.  When  sectionalism  had  brought  a 
kindred  people  to  blows  over  the  institution  of 
African  slavery  there  were  Puritans  who  fought  on 
the  Southern  side  and  Cavaliers  who  fought  on  the 
Northern  side.  What  was  Stonewall  Jackson  but 
a  Puritan?  What  were  Custer,  Stoneman  and 
Kearny  but  Cavaliers?  Wadsworth  was  as  abso- 
lute an  aristocrat  as  Hampton. 

In  the  old  days  before  the  war  of  sections  the 
South  was  full  of  typical  Southerners  of  Northern 
birth.  John  A.  Quitman,  who  went  from  New 
York,  and  Robert  J.  Walker,  who  went  from  Penn- 
sylvania to  Mississippi;  James  H.  Hammond, 
whose  father,  a  teacher,  went  from  Massachusetts 
to  South  Carolina.  John  Slidell,  born  and  bred  in 
New  York,  was  thirty  years  old  when  he  went  to 
Louisiana.  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  the  rose  and 
expectancy  of  the  young  Confederacy — the  most 
typical  of  rebel  soldiers — had  not  a  drop  of  South- 
ern blood  in  his  veins,  born  in  Kentucky  a  few 
months  after  his  father  and  mother  had  arrived 
there  from  Connecticut.  The  list  might  be  ex- 
tended indefinitely. 
[142] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Climate,  which  has  something  to  do  with  tem- 
perament, has  not  so  much  to  do  with  character  as 
is  often  imagined.  All  of  us  are  more  or  less  the 
creatures  of  environment.  In  the  South  after  a 
fashion  the  duello  flourished.  Because  it  had  not 
flourished  in  the  North  there  rose  a  notion  that 
the  Northerners  would  not  fight.  It  proved  to 
those  who  thought  it  a  costly  mistake. 

Down  to  the  actual  secession  of  1860-61  the  issue 
of  issues — the  issue  behind  all  issues — was  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  Union.  Between  1820  and  1850,  by 
a  series  of  compromises,  largely  the  work  of  Mr. 
Clay,  its  threatened  disruption  had  been  averted. 
The  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  put  a  sore  strain  upon 
conservative  elements  North  and  South.  The 
Whig  Party  went  to  pieces.  Mr.  Clay  passed  from 
the  scene.  Had  he  lived  until  the  presidential  elec- 
tion of  1852  he  would  have  given  his  support  to 
Franklin  Pierce,  as  Daniel  Webster  did.  Mr. 
Buchanan  was  ftiot  a  General  Jackson.  Judge 
Douglas,  who  sought  to  play  the  role  of  Mr.  Clay, 
was  too  late.  The  secession  leaders  held  the  whip 
hand  in  the  Gulf  States.  South  Carolina  was  to 
have  her  will  at  last.  Crash  came  the  shot  in 
Charleston  Harbor  and  the  fall  of  Sumter.   Curi- 

[143] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ously  enough  two  persons  of  Kentucky  birth — 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  Jefferson  Davis — led  the 
rival  hosts  of  war  into  which  an  untenable  and  in- 
defensible system  of  slave  labor,  for  which  the  two 
sections  were  equally  responsible,  had  precipitated 
an  unwilling  people. 

Had  Judge  Douglas  lived  he  would  have  been 
Mr.  Lincoln's  main  reliance  in  Congress.  As  a 
debater  his  resources  and  prowess  were  rarely 
equaled  and  never  surpassed.  His  personality, 
whether  in  debate  or  private  conversation,  was  at- 
tractive in  the  highest  degree.  He  possessed  a  full, 
melodious  voice,  convincing  fervor  and  ready  wit. 

He  had  married  for  his  second  wife  the  reigning 
belle  of  the  National  Capital,  a  great-niece  of  Mrs. 
Madison,  whose  very  natural  ambitions  quickened 
and  spurred  his  own. 

It  was  fated  otherwise.  Like  Clay,  Webster, 
Calhoun  and  Blaine  he  was  to  be  denied  the 
Presidency.  The  White  House  was  barred  to  him. 
He  was  not  yet  fifty  when  he  died. 

Tidings  of  his  death  took  the  country  by  sur- 
prise. But  already  the  sectional  battle  was  on 
and  it  produced  only  a  momentary  impression,  to 
be  soon  forgotten  amid  the  overwhelming  tumult  of 
[144] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

events.  He  has  lain  in  his  grave  now  nearly  sixty 
years.  Upon  the  legislation  of  his  time  his  name 
was  writ  first  in  water  and  then  in  blood.  He  re- 
ceived less  than  his  desert  in  life  and  the  historic 
record  has  scarcely  done  justice  to  his  merit.  He 
was  as  great  a  party  leader  as  Clay.  He  could  hold 
his  own  in  debate  with  Webster  and  Calhoun.  He 
died  a  very  poor  man,  though  his  opportunity  for 
enrichment  by  perfectly  legitimate  means  were 
many.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  he  lacked  the  busi- 
ness instinct  and  set  no  value  upon  money; 
scrupulously  upright  in  his  official  dealing ;  holding 
his  senatorial  duties  above  all  price  and  beyond  the 
suspicion  of  dirt. 

Touching  a  matter  which  involved  a  certain  out- 
lay in  the  winter  of  1861,  he  laughingly  said  to  me: 
"I  haven't  the  wherewithal  to  pay  for  a  bottle  of 
whisky  and  shall  have  to  borrow  of  Arnold  Harris 
the  wherewithal  to  take  me  home." 

His  wife  was  a  glorious  creature.  Early  one 
morning  calling  at  their  home  to  see  Judge  Douglas 
I  was  ushered  into  the  library,  where  she  was  en- 
gaged setting  things  to  rights.  My  entrance  took 
her  by  surprise.  I  had  often  seen  her  in  full  ball- 
room regalia  and  in  becoming  out-of-door  costume, 

[145] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

but  as,  in  gingham  gown  and  white  apron,  she 
turned,  a  little  startled  by  my  sudden  appearance, 
smiles  and  blushes  in  spite  of  herself,  I  thought  I 
had  never  seen  any  woman  so  beautiful  before. 
She  married  again — the  lover  whom  gossip  said  she 
had  thrown  over  to  marry  Judge  Douglas — and  the 
story  went  that  her  second  marriage  was  not  very 
happy. 

IV 

In  the  midsummer  of  1859  the  burning  question 
among  the  newsmen  of  Washington  was  the  Cen- 
tral American  Mission.  England  and  France  had 
displayed  activity  in  that  quarter  and  it  was 
deemed  important  that  the  United  States  should 
sit  up  and  take  notice.  An  Isthmian  canal  was  be- 
ing considered. 

Speculation  was  rife  whom  Mr.  Buchanan  would 
send  to  represent  us.  The  press  gang  of  the  Na- 
tional Capital  was  all  at  sea.  There  was  scarcely 
a  Democratic  leader  of  national  prominence  whose 
name  was  not  mentioned  in  that  connection,  though 
speculation  from  day  to  day  eddied  round  Mr. 
James  S.  Rollins,  of  Missouri,  an  especial  friend 
of  the  President  and  a  most  accomplished  public 
man. 

[146] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

At  the  height  of  excitement  I  happened  to  be  in 
the  library  of  the  State  Department.  I  was  on  a 
step-ladder  in  quest  of  a  book  when  I  heard  a  mes- 
senger say  to  the  librarian:  "The  President  is  in 
the  Secretary's  room  and  wants  to  have  Mr. 
Dimitry  come  there  right  away."  An  inspiration 
shot  through  me  like  a  flash.  They  had  chosen 
Alexander  Dimitry  for  the  Central  American  Mis- 
sion. 

He  was  the  official  translator  of  the  Department 
of  State.  Though  an  able  and  learned  man  he  was 
not  in  the  line  of  preferment.  He  was  without 
political  standing  or  backing  of  any  sort.  At  first 
blush  a  more  unlikely,  impossible  appointment 
could  hardly  be  suggested.  But — so  on  the  instant 
I  reasoned — he  was  peculiarly  fitted  in  his  own  per- 
son for  the  post  in  question.  Though  of  Greek 
origin  he  looked  like  a  Spaniard.  He  spoke  the 
Spanish  language  fluently.  He  had  the  procedure 
of  the  State  Department  at  his  finger's  ends.  He 
was  the  head  of  a  charming  domestic  fabric — his 
daughters  the  prettiest  girls  in  Washington.  Why 
not? 

I  climbed  down  from  my  stepladder  and  made 
tracks  for  the  office  of  the  afternoon  newspaper 

[147] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

for  which  I  was  doing  all-round  work.  I  was 
barely  on  time,  the  last  forms  being  locked  when  I 
got  there.  I  had  the  editorial  page  opened  and  in- 
serted at  the  top  of  the  leading  column  a  double- 
leaded  paragraph  announcing  that  the  agony  was 
over — that  the  Gordian  knot  was  cut — that  Alex- 
ander Dimitry  had  been  selected  as  Envoy  Extraor- 
dinary and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  the  Central 
American  States. 

It  proved  a  veritable  sensation  as  well  as  a 
notable  scoop.  To  increase  my  glory  the  corres- 
pondents of  the  New  York  dailies  scouted  it.  But 
in  a  day  or  two  it  was  officially  confirmed.  General 
Cass,  the  Secretary  of  State,  sent  for  me,  having 
learned  that  I  had  been  in  the  department  about 
the  time  of  the  consultation  between  the  President, 
himself  and  Mr.  Dimitry. 

"How  did  you  get  this?"  he  asked  rather  sharply. 

"Out  of  my  inner  consciousness,"  I  answered  with 
flippant  familiarity.  "Didn't  you  know  that  I  have 
what  they  call  second  sight?" 

The  old  gentleman  laughed  amiably.  "It  would 
seem  so,"  he  said,  and  sent  me  about  my  business 
without  further  inquiry. 

[148] 


'MARSE  HENRY' 


In  the  National  Capital  the  winter  of  1860-61 
was  both  stormy  and  nebulous.  Parties  were  at 
sea.  The  Northerners  in  Congress  had  learned  the 
trick  of  bullying  from  the  Southerners.  In  the 
Senate,  Chandler  was  a  match  for  Toombs ;  and  in 
the  House,  Thaddeus  Stevens  for  Keitt  and  La- 
mar. All  of  them,  more  or  less,  were  playing  a 
game.  If  sectional  war,  which  was  incessantly 
threatened  by  the  two  extremes,  had  been  keenly 
realized  and  seriously  considered  it  might  have  been 
averted.  Very  few  believed  that  it  would  come  to 
actual  war. 

A  convention  of  Border  State  men,  over  which 
ex-President  John  Tyler  presided,  was  held  in 
Washington.  It  might  as  well  have  been  held  at 
the  North  Pole.  Moderate  men  were  brushed 
aside,  their  counsels  whistled  down  the  wind.  There 
was  a  group  of  Senators,  headed  by  Wigfall  of 
Texas,  who  meant  disunion  and  war,  and  another 
group,  headed  by  Seward,  Hale  and  Chase,  who 
had  been  goaded  up  to  this.  Reading  contemporary 
history  and,  seeing  the  high-mightiness  with  which 
the  Germans  began  what  we  conceive  their  raid 

[149] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

upon  humanity,  we  are  wont  to  regard  it  as  evi- 
dence of  incredible  stupidity,  whereas  it  was,  in 
point  of  fact,  rather  a  miscalculation  of  forces. 
That  was  the  error  of  the  secession  leaders.  They 
refused  to  count  the  cost.  Yancey  firmly  believed 
that  England  would  be  forced  to  intervene.  The 
mills  of  Lancashire  he  thought  could  not  get  on 
without  Southern  cotton.  He  was  sent  abroad. 
He  found  Europe  solid  against  slavery  and  there- 
fore set  against  the  Confederacy.  He  came  home 
with  what  is  called  a  broken  heart — the  dreams  of 
a  lifetime  shattered — and,  in  a  kind  of  dazed  stupor, 
laid  himself  down  to  die.  With  Richmond  in 
flames  and  the  exultant  shouts  of  the  detested  yet 
victorious  Yankees  in  his  ears,  he  did  die. 

Wigfall  survived  but  a  few  years.  He  was  less 
a  dreamer  than  Yancey.  A  man  big  of  brain  and 
warm  of  heart  he  had  gone  from  the  ironclad  pro- 
vincialism of  South  Carolina  to  the  windswept 
vagaries  of  Texas.  He  believed  wholly  the  Yancey 
confession  of  faith;  that  secession  was  a  constitu- 
tional right;  that  African  slavery  was  ordained  of 
God;  that  the  South  was  paramount,  the  North  in- 
ferior. Yet  in  worldly  knowledge  he  had  learned 
more  than  Yancey — was  an  abler  man  than  Jeffer- 
[150] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

son  Davis — and  but  for  his  affections  and  generous 
habits  he  would  have  made  a  larger  figure  in  the 
war,  having  led  the  South's  exit  from  the  Senate. 

VI 

I  do  not  think  that  either  Hammond  or  Chest- 
nut, the  Senators  from  South  Carolina,  both  men 
of  parts,  had  at  bottom  much  belief  in  the  practica- 
bility of  the  Confederate  movement.  Neither  had 
the  Senators  from  Arkansas  and  Alabama,  nor 
Brown,  of  Mississippi,  the  colleague  of  Jefferson 
Davis.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  a  dogged  old  donkey, 
and  Iverson,  of  Georgia,  another,  were  the  kind  of 
men  whom  Wigf  all  dominated. 

One  of  the  least  confident  of  those  who  looked  on 
and  afterward  fell  in  line  was  the  Vice  President, 
John  C.  Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky.  He  was  the 
Beau  Sabreur  among  statesmen  as  Albert  Sidney 
Johnston,  among  soldiers.  Never  man  handsomer 
in  person  or  more  winning  in  manners.  Sprung 
from  a  race  of  political  aristocrats,  he  was  born  to 
early  and  shining  success  in  public  life.  Of  mode- 
rate opinions,  winning  and  prudent,  wherever  he 
appeared  he  carried  his  audience  with  him.  He  had 
been  elected  on  the  ticket  with  Buchanan  to  the 

[151] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

second  office  under  the  Government,  when  he  was 
but  five  and  thirty  years  of  age.  There  was  noth- 
ing for  him  to  gain  from  a  division  of  the  Union; 
the  Presidency,  perhaps,  if  the  Union  continued  un- 
divided. But  he  could  not  resist  the  onrush  of  dis- 
unionism,  went  with  the  South,  which  he  served 
first  in  the  field  and  later  as  Confederate  Secretary 
of  War,  and  after  a  few  years  of  self-imposed  exile 
in  Europe  returned  to  Kentucky  to  die  at  four  and 
fifty,  a  defeated  and  disappointed  old  man. 

The  adjoining  state  of  Tennessee  was  repre- 
sented in  the  Senate  by  one  of  the  most  problematic 
characters  in  American  history.  With  my  father, 
who  remained  his  friend  through  life,  he  had  entered 
the  state  legislature  in  1835,  and  having  served  ten 
years  in  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  and  four 
years  as  governor  of  Tennessee  he  came  back  in 
1857  to  the  National  Capital,  a  member  of  the 
Upper  House.    He  was  Andrew  Johnson. 

I  knew  him  from  my  childhood.  Thrice  that  I 
can  recall  I  saw  him  weep;  never  did  I  see  him 
laugh.  Life  had  been  very  serious,  albeit  very  suc- 
cessful, to  him.  Of  unknown  parentage,  the  wife 
he  had  married  before  he  was  one  and  twenty  had 

taught  him  to  read.    Yet  at  six  and  twenty  he  was 
[152] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

in  the  Tennessee  General  Assembly  and  at  four 
and  thirty  in  Congress. 

There  was  from  first  to  last  not  a  little  about  him 
to  baffle  conjecture.  I  should  call  him  a  cross  be- 
tween Jack  Cade  and  Aaron  Burr.  His  sympathies 
were  easily  stirred  by  rags  in  distress.  But  he  was 
uncompromising  in  his  detestation  of  the  rich.  It 
was  said  that  he  hated  "a  biled  shirt."  He  would 
have  nothing  to  do  "with  people  who  wore  broad- 
cloth," though  he  carefully  dressed  himself.  When, 
as  governor  of  Tennessee,  he  came  to  Nashville  he 
refused  many  invitations  to  take  his  first  New 
Year's  dinner  with  a  party  of  toughs  at  the  house 
of  a  river  roustabout. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  tough  about  him,  how- 
ever. His  language  was  careful  and  exact.  I 
never  heard  him  utter  an  oath  or  tell  a  risque  story. 
He  passed  quite  fifteen  years  in  Washington,  a 
total  abstainer  from  the  use  of  intoxicants.  He 
fell  into  the  occasional-drink  habit  during  the  dark 
days  of  the  War.  But  after  some  costly  experience 
he  dropped  it  and  continued  a  total  abstainer  to 
the  end  of  his  days. 

He  had,  indeed,  admirable  self-control.  I  do 
not  believe  a  more  conscientious  man  ever  lived. 

[153] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

His  judgments  were  sometimes  peculiar,  but  they 
were  upright  and  sincere,  having  reasons,  which  he 
could  give  with  power  and  effect,  behind  them.  Yet 
was  he  a  born  politician,  crafty  to  a  degree,  and  al- 
ways successful,  relying  upon  a  popular  following 
which  never  failed  him. 

In  1860  he  supported  the  quasi-secession  Breck- 
enridge  and  Lane  Presidential  ticket,  but  in  1861 
he  stood  true  to  the  Union,  retaining  his  seat  in  the 
Senate  until  he  was  appointed  military  governor  of 
Tennessee.  Nominated  for  Vice  President  on  the 
ticket  with  Lincoln,  in  1864,  he  was  elected,  and 
upon  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  succeeded  to  the 
Presidency.  Having  served  out  his  term  as  Presi- 
dent he  returned  to  Tennessee  to  engage  in  the  hot- 
test kind  of  politics,  and  though  at  the  outset  de- 
feated finally  regained  his  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States. 

He  hated  Grant  with  a  holy  hate.  His  first  act 
on  reentering  the  Senate  was  to  deliver  an  im- 
placably bitter  speech  against  the  President.  It 
was  his  last  public  appearance.  He  went  thence 
to  his  home  in  East  Tennessee,  gratified  and  happy, 
to  die  in  a  few  weeks. 

[[154] 


'MARSE  HENRY" 


VII 


There  used  to  be  a  story  about  Raleigh,  in  North 
Carolina,  where  Andrew  Johnson  was  born,  which 
whispered  that  he  was  a  natural  son  of  William 
Ruffin,  an  eminent  jurist  in  the  earlier  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  was  analogous  to  the  story 
that  Lincoln  was  the  natural  son  of  various  paterni- 
ties from  time  to  time  assigned  to  him.  I  had  my 
share  in  running  that  calumny  to  cover.  It  was  a 
lie  out  of  whole  cloth  with  nothing  whatever  to  sup- 
port or  excuse  it.  I  reached  the  bottom  of  it  to  dis- 
cover proof  of  its  baselessness  abundant  and  con- 
clusive. In  Johnson's  case  I  take  it  that  the  story 
had  nothing  other  to  rest  on  than  the  obscurity  of 
his  birth  and  the  quality  of  his  talents.  Late  in  life 
Johnson  went  to  Raleigh  and  caused  to  be  erected 
a  modest  tablet  over  the  spot  pointed  out  as  the 
grave  of  his  progenitor,  saying,  I  was  told  by  per- 
sons claiming  to  have  been  present,  "I  place  this 
stone  over  the  last  earthly  abode  of  my  alleged 
father." 

Johnson,  in  the  saying  of  the  countryside,  "out- 
married  himself."  His  wife  was  a  plain  woman, 
but  came  of  good  family.    One  day,  when  a  child,  so 

[155] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  legend  ran,  she  saw  passing  through  the  Green- 
ville street  in  which  her  people  lived,  a  woman,  a  boy 
and  a  cow,  the  boy  carrying  a  pack  over  his  shoul- 
der. They  were  obviously  weary  and  hungry.  Ex- 
treme poverty  could  present  no  sadder  picture. 
"Mother,"  cried  the  girl,  "there  goes  the  man  I  am 
going  to  marry."  She  was  thought  to  be  in  jest. 
But  a  few  years  later  she  made  her  banter  good 
and  lived  to  See  her!  husband  President  of  the 
United  States  and  with  him  to  occupy  the  White 
House  at  Washington. 

Much  has  been  written  of  the  humble  birth  and 
iron  fortune  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  had  no  such 
obstacles  to  overcome  as  either  Andrew  Jackson  or 
Andrew  Johnson.  Jackson,  a  prisoner  of  war,  was 
liberated,  a  lad  of  sixteen,  from  the  British  pen  at 
Charleston,  without  a  relative,  a  friend  or  a  dollar 
in  the  world,  having  to  make  his  way  upward 
through  the  most  aristocratic  community  of  the 
country  and  the  time.  Johnson,  equally  friendless 
and  penniless,  started  as  a  poor  tailor  in  a  rustic 
village.  Lincoln  must  therefore,  take  third  place 
among  our  self-made  Presidents.  The  Hanks 
family  were  not  paupers.  He  had  a  wise  and  help- 
ful stepmother.  He  was  scarcely  worse  off  than 
[156] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

most  young  fellows  of  his  neighborhood,  first  in 
Indiana  and  then  in  Illinois.  On  this  side  justice 
has  never  been  rendered  to  Jackson  and  Johnson. 
In  the  case  of  Jackson  the  circumstance  was  for- 
gotten, while  Johnson  too  often  dwelt  upon  it  and 
made  capital  out  of  it. 

Under  date  of  the  23rd  of  May,  1919,  the  Hon. 
Josephus  Daniels,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  writes 
me  the  following  letter,  which  I  violate  no  confi- 
dence in  reproducing  in  this  connection: 

My  Dear  Marse  Henry: — 

I  can't  tell  you  how  much  delight  and  pleasure 
your  reminiscences  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post 
have  given  me,  as  well  as  the  many  others  who  have 
followed  them,  and  I  suppose  you  will  put  them  in 
a  volume  when  they  are  finished,  so  that  we  may 
have  the  pleasure  of  reading  them  in  connected 
order. 

As  you  know,  I  live  in  Raleigh  and  I  was  very 
much  interested  in  your  article  in  the  issue  of  April 
5,  1919,  with  reference  to  Andrew  Johnson,  in 
which  you  quote  a  story  that  "used  to  be  current 
in  Raleigh,  that  he  was  the  son  of  William  Ruffin, 
an  eminent  jurist  of  the  ninetenth  century."     I 

[157] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

had  never  heard  this  story,  but  the  story  that  was 
gossiped  there  was  that  he  was  the  son  of  a  certain 
Senator  Haywood.  I  ran  that  story  down  and 
found  that  it  had  no  foundation  whatever,  because 
if  he  had  been  the  son  of  the  Senator  reputed  to  be 
his  father,  the  Senator  was  of  the  age  of  twelve 
years  when  Andrew  Johnson  was  born. 

My  own  information  is,  for  I  have  made  some 
investigation  of  it,  that  the  story  about  Andrew 
Johnson's  having  a  father  other  than  the  husband 
of  his  mother,  is  as  wanting  in  foundation  as  the 
story  about  Abraham  Lincoln.  You  did  a  great 
service  in  running  that  down  and  exposing  it,  and 
I  trust  before  you  finish  your  book  that  you  will 
make  further  investigation  and  be  able  to  do  a  like 
service  in  repudiating  the  unjust,  idle  gossip  with 
reference  to  Andrew  Johnson.  In  your  article  you 
say  that  persons  who  claim  to  have  been  present 
when  Johnson  came  to  Raleigh  and  erected  a  monu- 
ment over  the  grave  of  his  father,  declare  that 
Johnson  said  he  placed  this  stone  over  the  last 
earthly  abode  of  "my  alleged  father."  That  is  one 
phase  of  the  gossip,  and  the  other  is  that  he  said 
"my  reputed  father,"  both  equally  false. 

The  late  Mr.  Pulaski  Cowper,  who  was  private 
[158] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

secretary  to  Governor  Bragg,  of  our  State,  just 
prior  to  the  war,  and  who  was  afterwards  president 
of  our  leading  life  insurance  company,  a  gentleman 
of  high  character,  and  of  the  best  memory,  was 
present  at  the  time  that  Johnson  made  the  address 
from  which  you  quote  the  rumor.  Mr.  Cowper 
wrote  an  article  for  The  News  and  Observer,  giv- 
ing the  story  and  relating  that  Johnson  said  that 
"he  was  glad  to  come  to  Raleigh  to  erect  a  tablet 
to  his  father."  The  truth  is  that  while  his  father 
was  a  man  of  little  or  no  education,  he  held  the 
position  of  janitor  at  the  State  Capitol,  and  he 
was  not  wanting  in  qualities  which  made  him 
superior  to  his  humble  position.  If  he  had  been 
living  in  this  day  he  would  have  been  given  a  life- 
saving  medal,  for  upon  the  occasion  of  a  picnic 
near  Raleigh  when  the  cry  came  that  children  were 
drowning  he  was  the  first  to  leap  in  and  endanger 
his  life  to  save  them. 

Andrew  Johnson's  mother  was  related  to  the 
Chappell  family,  of  which  there  are  a  number  of 
citizens  of  standing  and  character  near  Raleigh, 
several  of  them  having  been  ministers  of  the 
Gospel,  and  one  at  least  having  gained  distinction 
as  a  missionary  in  China. 

[159] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  am  writing  you  because  I  know  that  your  story 
will  be  read  and  accepted  and  I  thought  you  would 
be  glad  to  have  this  story,  based  upon  a  study  and 
investigation  and  personal  knowledge  of  Mr. 
Cowper,  whose  character  and  competency  are  well 
known  in  North  Carolina. 


[160] 


CHAPTER  THE  SEVENTH 

AN    OLD    NEWSPAPER    ROOKERY REACTIONARY    SEC- 
TIONALISM  IN   CINCINNATI  AND   LOUISVILLE 

THE  COURIER-JOURNAL 


I 

MY  dream  of  wealth  through  my  commission 
on  the  Confederate  cotton  I  was  to  sell  to 
English  buyers  was  quickly  shattered.  The  cotton 
was  burned  and  I  found  myself  in  the  early  spring 
of  1865  in  the  little  village  of  Glendale,  a  suburb  of 
Cincinnati,  where  the  future  Justice  Stanley  Mat- 
thews had  his  home.  His  wife  was  a  younger  sister 
of  my  mother.  My  grandmother  was  still  alive  and 
lived  with  her  daughter  and  son-in-law. 

I  was  received  with  open  arms.  A  few  days  later 
the  dear  old  lady  said  to  me:  "I  suppose,  my  son, 
you  are  rather  a  picked  bird  after  your  adventures 
in  the  South.  You  certainly  need  better  clothing. 
I  have  some  money  in  bank  and  it  is  freely  yours." 

I  knew  that  my  Uncle  Stanley  had  put  her  up 

[161] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  this,  and  out  of  sheer  curiosity  I  asked  her  how 
much  she  could  let  me  have.  She  named  what 
seemed  to  me  a  stupendous  sum.  I  thanked  her, 
told  her  I  had  quite  a  sufficiency  for  the  time  being, 
slipped  into  town  and  pawned  my  watch;  that  is, 
as  I  made  light  of  it  afterward  in  order  to  escape 
the  humiliation  of  borrowing  from  an  uncle  whose 
politics  I  did  not  approve,  I  went  with  my  collateral 
to  an  uncle  who  had  no  politics  at  all  and  got  fifty 
dollars  on  it!  Before  the  money  was  gone  I  had 
found,  through  Judge  Matthews,  congenial  work. 

There  was  in  Cincinnati  but  one  afternoon  news- 
paper— the  Evening  Times — owned  by  Calvin  W. 
Starbuck.  He  had  been  a  practical  printer  but  was 
grown  very  rich.  He  received  me  kindly,  said  the 
editorial  force  was  quite  full — must  always  be,  on 
a  daily  newspaper — "but,"  he  added,  "my  brother, 
Alexander  Starbuck,  who  has  been  running  the 
amusements,  wants  to  go  a-fishing  in  Canada — to 
be  gone  a  month — and,  if  you  wish,  you  can  during 
his  absence  sub  for  him." 

It  was  just  to  my  hand  and  liking.  Before  Alex- 
ander Starbuck  returned  the  leading  editor  of  the 
paper  fell  from  a  ferryboat  crossing  the  Ohio 
River  and  was  drowned.  The  next  day  General 
[162] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Starbuck  sent  for  me  and  offered  me  the  vacant 
place. 

"Why,  general,"  I  said,  "I  am  an  outlawed  man : 
I  do  not  agree  with  your  politics.  I  do  not  see  how 
I  can  undertake  a  place  so  conspicuous  and  re- 
sponsible." 

He  replied:  "I  propose  to  engage  you  as  an 
editorial  manager.  It  is  as  if  building  a  house  you 
should  be  head  carpenter,  I  the  architect.  The  dif- 
ference in  salary  will  be  seventy-five  dollars  a  week 
against  fifteen  dollars  a  week." 

I  took  the  place. 

II 

The  office  of  the  Evening  Times  was  a  queer  old 
curiosity  shop.  I  set  to  and  turned  it  inside  out. 
I  had  very  pronounced  journalistic  notions  of  my 
own  and  applied  them  in  every  department  of  the 
sleepy  old  money-maker.  One  afternoon  a  week 
later  I  put  forth  a  paper  whose  oldest  reader  could 
not  have  recognized  it.  The  next  morning's  Cin- 
cinnati Commercial  contained  a  flock  of  paragraphs 
to  which  the  Chattanooga- Cincinnati-Rebel  Eve- 
ning Times  furnished  the  keynote. 

They  made  funny  reading,  but  they  threw  a 
dangerous  flare  upon  my  "past"  and  put  me  at  a 

[163] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

serious  disadvantage.  It  happened  that  when 
Artemus  Ward  had  been  in  town  a  fortnight  before 
he  gave  me  a  dinner  and  had  some  of  his  friends  to 
meet  me.  Among  these  was  a  young  fellow  of  the 
name  of  Halstead,  who,  I  was  told,  was  the  coming 
man  on  the  Commercial. 

Round  to  the  Commercial  office  I  sped,  and  be- 
ing conducted  to  this  person,  who  received  me  very 
blandly,  I  said:  "Mr.  Halstead,  I  am  a  journeyman 
day  laborer  in  your  city — the  merest  bird  of  pas- 
sage, with  my  watch  at  the  pawnbroker's.  As  soon 
as  I  am  able  to  get  out  of  town  I  mean  to  go — and 
I  came  to  ask  if  you  can  think  the  personal  allusions 
to  me  in  to-day's  paper,  which  may  lose  me  my  job 
but  can  nowise  hurt  the  Times,  are  quite  fair — even 
— since  I  am  without  defense — quite  manly." 

He  looked  at  me  with  that  quizzical,  serio-comic 
stare  which  so  became  him,  and  with  great  heartiness 
replied:  "No — they  were  damned  mean — though 
I  did  not  realize  how  mean.  The  mark  was  so 
obvious  and  tempting  I  could  not  resist,  but — there 
shall  be  no  more  of  them.  Come,  let  us  go  and 
have  a  drink." 

That  was  the  beginning  of  a  friendship  which 
brought  happiness  to  both  of  us  and  lasted  nearly 
[164] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

half  a  century,  to  the  hour  of  his  death,  when,  going 
from  Louisville  to  Cincinnati,  I  helped  to  lay  him 
away  in  Spring  Grove  Cemetery. 

I  had  no  thought  of  remaining  in  Cincinnati. 
My  objective  was  Nashville,  where  the  young 
woman  who  was  to  become  my  wife,  and  whom  I 
had  not  seen  for  nearly  two  years,  was  living  with 
her  family.  During  the  summer  Mr.  Francisco, 
the  business  manager  of  the  Evening  Times,  had 
a  scheme  to  buy  the  Toledo  Commercial,  in  con- 
junction with  Mr.  Comly,  of  Columbus,  and  to  en- 
gage me  as  editor  conjointly  with  Mr.  Harrison 
Gray  Otis  as  publisher.  It  looked  very  good. 
Toledo  threatened  Cleveland  and  Detroit  as  a  lake 
port.  But  nothing  could  divert  me.  As  soon  as 
Parson  Brownlow,  who  was  governor  of  Tennessee 
and  making  things  lively  for  the  returning  rebels, 
would  allow,  I  was  going  to  Nashville. 

About  the  time  the  way  was  cleared  my  two 
pals,  or  bunkies,  of  the  Confederacy,  Albert  Rob- 1 
erts  and  George  Purvis,  friends  from  boyhood,  put1 
in  an  appearance.  They  were  on  their  way  to  the 
capital  of  Tennessee.  The  father  of  Albert  Rob- 
erts was  chief  owner  of  the  Republican  Banner,  an 
old  and  highly  respectable  newspaper,  which  had 

[165] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

for  nearly  four  years  lain  in  a  state  of  suspension. 
Their  plan  now  was  to  revive  its  publication,  Purvis 
to  be  business  manager,  and  Albert  and  I  to  be 
editors.  We  had  no  cash.  Nobody  on  our  side  of 
the  line  had  any  cash.  But  John  Roberts  owned  a 
farm  he  could  mortgage  for  money  enough  to  start 
us.    What  had  I  to  say? 

Less  than  a  week  later  saw  us  back  at  home  win- 
nowing the  town  for  subscribers  and  advertising. 
We  divided  it  into  districts,  each  taking  a  specified 
territory.  The  way  we  boys  hustled  was  a  sight 
to  see.  But  the  way  the  community  warmed  to  us 
was  another.  When  the  familiar  headline,  The 
Republican  Banner,  made  its  apearance  there  was 
a  popular  hallelujah,  albeit  there  were  five  other 
dailies  ahead  of  us.  A  year  later  there  was  only 
one,  and  it  was  nowise  a  competitor. 

Albert  Roberts  had  left  his  girl,  Edith  Scott, 
the  niece  of  Huxley,  whom  I  have  before  mentioned, 
in  Montgomery,  Alabama.  Purvis'  girl,  Sophie 
Searcy,  was  in  Selma.  Their  hope  was  to  have 
enough  money  by  Christmas  each  to  pay  a  visit  to 
those  distant  places.  My  girl  was  on  the  spot,  and 
we  had  resolved,  money  or  no  money,  to  be  married 
without  delay.  Before  New  Year's  the  three  of  us 
[166] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

were  wedded  and  comfortably  settled,  with  funds 
galore,  for  the  paper  had  thrived  consumingly.  It 
had  thrived  so  consumingly  that  after  a  little  I  was 
able  to  achieve  the  wish  of  my  heart  and  to  go  to 
London,  taking  my  wife  and  my  "great  American 
novel"  with  me.  I  have  related  elsewhere  what 
came  of  this  and  what  happened  to  me. 

ill 

That  bread  cast  upon  the  waters — "  'dough'  put 
out  at  usance,"  as  Joseph  Jefferson  used  to  phrase 
it — shall  return  after  many  days  has  been  I  dare 
say  discovered  by  most  persons  who  have  perpe- 
trated acts  of  kindness,  conscious  or  unconscious. 
There  was  a  poor,  broken-down  English  actor  with 
a  passion  for  Chaucer,  whom  I  was  wont  to  en- 
counter in  the  Library  of  Congress.  His  voice  was 
quite  gone.  Now  and  again  I  had  him  join  me  in 
a  square  meal.  Once  in  a  while  I  paid  his  room 
rent.  I  was  loath  to  leave  him  when  the  break  came 
in  1861,  though  he  declared  he  had  "expectations," 
and  made  sure  he  would  not  starve. 

I  was  passing  through  Regent  Street  in  London, 
when  a  smart  brougham  drove  up  to  the  curb  and 
a  wheezy  voice  called  after  me.     It  was  my  old 

[167] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

friend,  Newton.  His  "expectations"  had  not  failed 
him,  he  had  come  into  a  property  and  was  living 
in  affluence. 

He  knew  London  as  only  a  Bohemian  native 
and  to  the  manner  born  could  know  it.  His  sense 
of  bygone  obligation  knew  no  bounds.  Between 
him  and  John  Mahoney  and  Artemus  Ward  I  was 
made  at  home  in  what  might  be  called  the  mysteries 
and  eccentricities  of  differing  phases  of  life  in  the 
British  metropolis  not  commonly  accessible  to  the 
foreign  casual.  In  many  after  visits  this  familiar 
knowledge  has  served  me  well.  But  Newton  did 
not  live  to  know  of  some  good  fortune  that  came 
to  me  and  to  feel  my  gratitude  to  him,  as  dear  old 
John  Mahoney  did.  When  I  was  next  in  London 
he  was  gone. 

It  was  not,  however,  the  actor,  Newton,  whom 
I  had  in  mind  in  offering  a  bread-upon-the-water 
moral,  but  a  certain  John  Hatcher,  the  memory  of 
whom  in  my  case  illustrates  it  much  better.  He 
was  a  wit  and  a  poet.  He  had  been  State  Librarian 
of  Tennessee.  Nothing  could  keep  him  out  of  the 
service,  though  he  was  a  sad  cripple  and  wholly  un- 
equal to  its  requirements.  He  fell  ill.  I  had  the 
opportunity  to  care  for  him.  When  the  war  was 
[168] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

over  his  old  friend,  George  D.  Prentice,  called  him 
to  Louisville  to  take  an  editorial  place  on  the 
Journal. 

About  the  same  time  Mr.  Walter  Haldeman  re- 
turned from  the  South  and  resumed  the  suspended 
publication  of  the  Louisville  Courier.  He  was  in 
the  prime  of  life,  a  man  of  surpassing  energy,  enter- 
prise and  industry,  and  had  with  him  the  popular 
sympathy.  Mr.  Prentice  was  nearly  three  score 
and  ten.  The  stream  had  passed  him  by.  The 
Journal  was  not  only  beginning  to  feel  the  strain 
but  was  losing  ground.  In  this  emergency  Hatcher 
came  to  the  rescue.  I  was  just  back  from  London  ,! 
and  was  doing  noticeable  work  on  the  Nashville 
Banner. 

"Here  is  your  man,"  said  Hatcher  to  Mr.  Pren-  ; 
tice  and  Mr.  Henderson,  the  owners  of  the  Journal ;  I 
and  I  was  invited  to  come  to  Louisville. 

After  I  had  looked  over  the  field  and  inspected 
the  Journal's  books  I  was  satisfied  that  a  union 
with  the  Courier  was  the  wisest  solution  of  the 
newspaper  situation,  and  told  them  so.  Meanwhile 
Mr.  Haldeman,  whom  I  had  known  in  the  Confed- 
eracy, sent  for  me.  He  offered  me  the  same  terms 
for   part   ownership   and   sole   editorship   of  the 

[169] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Courier,  which  the  Journal  people  had  offered  me. 
This  I  could  not  accept,  but  proposed  as  an  alterna- 
tive the  consolidation  of  the  two  on  an  equal  basis. 
He  was  willing  enough  for  the  consolidation,  but 
not  on  equal  terms.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but 
a  fight.  I  took  the  Journal  and  began  to  hammer 
the  Courier. 

A  dead  summer  was  before  us,  but  Mr.  Hender- 
son had  plenty  of  money  and  was  willing  to  spend 
it.  During  the  contest  not  an  unkind  word  was 
printed  on  either  side.  After  stripping  the  Journal 
to  its  heels  it  had  very  little  to  go  on  or  to  show  for 
what  had  once  been  a  prosperous  business.  But 
circulation  flowed  in.  From  eighten  hundred  daily 
it  quickly  mounted  to  ten  thousand;  from  fifteen 
hundred  weekly  to  fifty  thousand.  The  middle  of 
October  it  looked  as  if  we  had  a  straight  road  be- 
fore us. 

But  I  knew  better.  I  had  discovered  that  the 
field,  no  matter  how  worked,  was  not  big  enough  to 
support  two  rival  dailies.  There  was  toward  the 
last  of  October  on  the  edge  of  town  a  real-estate 
sale  which  Mr.  Haldeman  and  I  attended.  Here 
was  my  chance  for  a  play.  I  must  have  bid  up  to  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  and  did  actually  buy 
[170] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

nearly  ten  thousand  dollars  of  the  lots  put  up  at 
auction,  relying  upon  some  money  presently  com- 
ing to  my  wife. 

I  could  see  that  it  made  an  impression  on  Mr. 
Haldeman.  Returning  in  the  carriage  which  had 
brought  us  out  I  said:  "Mr.  Haldeman,  I  am  going 
to  ruin  you.  But  I  am  going  to  run  up  a  money 
obligation  to  I  sham  Henderson  I  shall  never  be 
able  to  discharge.  You  need  an  editor.  I  need  a 
publisher.  Let  us  put  these  two  newspapers  to- 
gether, buy  the  Democrat,  and,  instead  of  cutting ' 
one  another's  throats,  go  after  Cincinnati  and  St. 
Louis.  You  will  recall  that  I  proposed  this  to  you 
in  the  beginning.  What  is  the  matter  with  it 
now?" 

Nothing  was  the  matter  with  it.  He  agreed  at 
once.  The  details  were  soon  adjusted.  Ten  days 
later  there  appeared  upon  the  doorsteps  of  the  city 
in  place  of  the  three  familiar  visitors,  a  double- 
headed  stranger,  calling  itself  the  Courier- Journal. 
Our  exclusive  possession  of  the  field  thus  acquired 
lasted  two  years.  At  the  end  of  these  we  found  that 
at  least  the  appearance  of  competition  was  indis- 
pensable and  willingly  acepted  an  offer  from  a  pro- 
posed Republican  organ  for  a  division  of  the  Press 

[171] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

dispatches  which  we  controlled.     Then  and  there 

the  real  prosperity  of  the  Courier-Journal  began, 

the   paper   having   made   no   money   out   of   its 

monopoly. 

IV 

Reconstruction,  as  it  was  called — ruin  were  a 
fitter  name  for  it — had  just  begun.  The  South 
was  imprisoned,  awaiting  the  executioner.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  hung  in  the 
balance.  The  Federal  Union  faced  the  threat  of 
sectional  despotism.  The  spirit  of  the  time  was 
martial  law.  The  gospel  of  proscription  ruled  in 
Congress.  Radicalism,  vitalized  by  the  murder  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  inflamed  by  the  inadequate 
effort  of  Andrew  Johnson  to  carry  out  the  policies 
of  Lincoln,  was  in  the  saddle  riding  furiously  to- 
ward a  carpetbag  Poland  and  a  negroized  Ireland. 

The  Democratic  Party,  which,  had  it  been 
stronger,  might  have  interposed,  lay  helpless.  It, 
too,  was  crushed  to  earth.  Even  the  Border  States, 
which  had  not  been  embraced  by  the  military 
agencies  and  federalized  machinery  erected  over 
the  Gulf  States,  were  seriously  menaced.  Never 
did  newspaper  enterprise  set  out  under  gloomier 
auspices. 
[172] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

There  was  a  party  of  reaction  in  Kentucky, 
claiming  to  be  Democratic,  playing  to  the  lead  of 
the  party  of  repression  at  the  North.  It  refused 
to  admit  that  the  head  of  the  South  was  in  the 
lion's  mouth  and  that  the  first  essential  was  to  get 
it  out.  JThe  Courier- Journal  proposed  to  stroke—""'' 
the  mane,  not  twist  the  tail  of  the  lion.  Thus  it 
stood  between  two  fires.  There  arose  a  not  un- 
natural distrust  of  the  journalistic  monopoly 
created  by  the  consolidation  of  the  three  former 
dailies  into  a  single  newspaper,  carrying  an  un- 
familiar hyphenated  headline.  Touching  its  policy 
of  sectional  conciliation  it  picked  its  way  perilously 
through  the  cross  currents  of  public  opinion. 
There  was  scarcely  a  sinister  purpose  that  was  not 
alleged  against  it  by  its  enemies;  scarcely  a  hostile 
device  that  was  not  undertaken  to  put  it  down  and 
drive  it  out. 

Its  constituency  represented  an  unknown  quan- 
tity. In  any  event  it  had  to  be  created.  Mean- 
while, it  must  rely  upon  its  own  resources,  sustained 
by  the  courage  of  the  venture,  by  the  integrity  of 
its  convictions  and  aims,  and  by  faith  in  the  future 
of  the  city,  the  state  and  the  country. 

Still,  to  be  precise,  it  was  the  morning  of  Sun- 

[173] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

day,  November  8, 1868.  The  night  before  the  good 
people  of  Louisville  had  gone  to  bed  expecting 
nothing  unusual  to  happen.  They  awoke  to  en- 
counter an  uninvited  guest  arrived  a  little  before 
the  dawn.  No  hint  of  its  coming  had  got  abroad; 
and  thus  the  surprise  was  the  greater.  Truth  to 
say,  it  was  not  a  pleased  surprise,  because,  as  it 
flared  before  the  eye  of  the  startled  citizen  in  big 
Gothic  letters,  The  Courier-Journal,  there  issued 
thence  an  aggressive  self-confidence  which  affronted 
the  amour  propre  of  the  sleepy  villagers.  They 
were  used  to  a  very  different  style  of  newspaper 
approach. 

Nor  was  the  absence  of  a  timorous  demeanor  its 
only  offense.  The  Courier  had  its  partisans,  the 
Journal  and  the  Democrat  had  their  friends.  The 
trio  stood  as  ancient  landmarks,  as  recognized  and 
familiar  institutions.  Here  was  a  double-headed 
monster  which,  without  saying  "by  your  leave"  or 
"blast  your  eyes"  or  any  other  politeness,  had  taken 
possession  of  each  man's  doorstep,  looking  very  like 
it  had  brought  its  knitting  and  was  come  to  stay. 

The  Journal  established  by  Mr.  Prentice,  the 
Courier  by  Mr.  Haldeman  and  the  Democrat  by 
Mr.  Harney,  had  been  according  to  the  standards 
[174] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  those  days  successful  newspapers.  But  the  War 
of  Sections  had  made  many  changes.  At  its  close 
new  conditions  appeared  on  every  side.  A  revolu- 
tion had  come  into  the  business  and  the  spirit  of 
American  journalism. 

In  Louisville  three  daily  newspapers  had  for  a 
generation  struggled  for  the  right  of  way.  Yet 
Louisville  was  a  city  of  the  tenth  or  twelfth  class, 
having  hardly  enough  patronage  to  sustain  one 
daily  newspaper  of  the  first  or  second  class.  The 
idea  of  consolidating  the  three  thus  contending  to 
divide  a  patronage  so  insufficient,  naturally  sug- 
gested itself  during  the  years  immediately  succeed- 
ing the  war.  But  it  did  not  take  definite  shape 
until  1868. 

Mr.  Haldeman  had  returned  from  a  somewhat 
picturesque  and  not  altogether  profitable  pursuit 
of  his  "rights  in  the  territories"  and  had  resumed 
the  suspended  publication  of  the  Courier  with  en- 
couraging prospects.  I  had  succeeded  Mr.  Pren- 
tice in  the  editorship  and  part  ownership  of  the 
Journal.  Both  Mr.  Haldeman  and  I  were  news- 
paper men  to  the  manner  born  and  bred;  old  and 
good  friends;  and  after  our  rivalry  of  six  months 
maintained  with  activity  on  both  sides,  but  without 

[175] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  publication  of  an  unkind  word  on  either,  a 

union  of  forces  seemed  exigent.    To  practical  men 

the  need  of  this  was  not  a  debatable  question.    All 

that  was  required  was  an  adjustment  of  the  details. 

Beginning  with  the  simple  project  of  joining  the 

Courier  and  the  Journal,  it  ended  by  the  purchase 

of  the  Democrat,  which  it  did  not  seem  safe  to 

leave  outside. 

v 

The  political  conditions  in  Kentucky  were  anoma- 
lous. The  Republican  Party  had  not  yet  definitely 
taken  root.  Many  of  the  rich  old  Whigs,  who  had 
held  to  the  Government — to  save  their  slaves — 
resenting  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
had  turned  Democrats.  Most  of  the  before-the- 
war  Democrats  had  gone  with  the  Confederacy. 
The  party  in  power  called  itself  Democratic,  but 
was  in  fact  a  body  of  reactionary  nondescripts 
claiming  to  be  Unionists  and  clinging,  or  pretend- 
ing to  cling,  to  the  hard-and-fast  prejudices  of 
other  days. 

The  situation  may  be  the  better  understood  when 

I  add  that  "negro  testimony" — the  introduction  to 

the  courts  of  law  of  the  newly  made  freedmen  as 

witnesses — barred  by  the  state  constitution,  was  the 

[176] 


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. 

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. 

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s    'i^M>»^|**^B 

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,.-4     :;;'; 

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■*"  ,-i- 

"MARSE  HENRY" 

burning  issue.  A  murder  committed  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  thousand  negroes  could  not  be  lawfully 
proved  in  court.  Everything  from  a  toothbrush  to 
a  cake  of  soap  might  be  cited  before  a  jury,  but 
not  a  human  being  if  his  skin  happened  to  be  black. 

To  my  mind  this  was  monstrous.  From  my 
cradle  I  had  detested  slavery.  The  North  will 
never  know  how  many  people  at  the  South  did  so. 
I  could  not  go  with  the  Republican  Party,  how- 
ever, because  after  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
it  had  intrenched  itself  in  the  proscription  of  South- 
ern men.  The  attempt  to  form  a  third  party  had 
shown  no  strength  and  had  broken  down.  There 
was  nothing  for  me,  and  the  Confederates  who  were 
with  me,  but  the  ancient  label  of  a  Democracy  worn 
by  a  riffraff  of  opportunists,  Jeffersonian  prin- 
ciples having  quite  gone  to  seed.  But  I  proposed 
to  lead  and  reform  it,  not  to  follow  and  fall  in  be- 
hind the  selfish  and  short-sighted  time  servers  who 
thought  the  people  had  learned  nothing  and  forgot 
nothing;  and  instant  upon  finding  myself  in  the 
saddle  I  sought  to  ride  down  the  mass  of  ignorance 
which  was  at  least  for  the  time  being  mainly  what 
I  had  to  look  to  for  a  constituency. 

Mr.  Prentice,  who  knew  the  lay  of  the  ground 

[177] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

better  than  I  did,  advised  against  it.  The  personal 
risk  counted  for  something.  Very  early  in  the  ac- 
tion I  made  a  direct  righting  issue,  which — the  com- 
bat interdicted — gave  me  the  opportunity  to  de- 
clare— with  something  of  the  bully  in  the  tone — 
that  I  might  not  be  able  to  hit  a  barn  door  at  ten 
paces,  but  could  shoot  with  any  man  in  Kentucky 
across  a  pocket  handkerchief,  holding  myself  at  all 
times  answerable  and  accessible.  I  had  a  fairly 
good  righting  record  in  the  army  and  it  was  not 
doubted  that  I  meant  what  I  said. 

But  it  proved  a  bitter,  hard,  uphill  struggle,  for 
a  long  while  against  odds,  before  negro  testimony 
was  carried.  A  generation  of  politicians  were  sent 
to  the  rear.  Finally,  in  1876,  a  Democratic  State 
Convention  put  its  mark  upon  me  as  a  Democrat 
by  appointing  me  a  Delegate  at  large  to  the  Na- 
tional Democratic  Convention  of  that  year  called 
to  meet  at  St.  Louis  to  put  a  Presidential  ticket 
in  the  field. 

The  Courier-Journal  having  come  to  represent 
all  three  of  the  English  dailies  of  the  city  the  public 
began  to  rebel.  It  could  not  see  that  instead  of  three 
newspapers  of  the  third  or  fourth  class  Louisville 
was  given  one  newspaper  of  the  first  class ;  that  in- 
[178] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

stead  of  dividing  the  local  patronage  in  three 
inadequate  portions,  wasted  upon  a  triple  competi- 
tion, this  patronage  was  combined,  enabling  the 
one  newspaper  to  engage  in  a  more  equal  competi- 
tion with  the  newspapers  of  such  rival  and  larger 
cities  as  Cincinnati  and  St.  Louis ;  and  that  one  of 
the  contracting  parties  needing  an  editor,  the  other 
a  publisher,  in  coming  together  the  two  were  able 
to  put  their  trained  faculties  to  the  best  account. 
Nevertheless,  during  thirty-five  years  Mr. 
Haldeman  and  I  labored  side  by  side,  not  the 
least  difference  having  arisen  between  us.  The 
attacks  to  which  we  were  subjected  from  time  to 
time  drew  us  together  the  closer.  These  attacks 
were  sometimes  irritating  and  sometimes  comical, 
but  they  had  one  characteristic  feature:  Each 
started  out  apparently  under  a  high  state  of  excite- 
ment. Each  seemed  to  have  some  profound  cause 
of  grief,  to  be  animated  by  implacable  hate  and  to 
aim  at  nothing  short  of  annihilation.  Frequently 
the  assailants  would  lie  in  wait  to  see  how  the 
Courier- Journal's  cat  was  going  to  jump,  in  order 
that  they  might  take  the  other  side ;  and  invariably, 
even  if  the  Courier-Journal  stood  for  the  reforms 
they  affected  to  stand  for,  they  began  a  system  of 

[179] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

misrepresentation  and  abuse.    In  no  instance  did 
they  attain  any  success. 

Only  once,  during  the  Free  Silver  craze  of  1896, 
and  the  dark  and  tragic  days  that  followed  it  the 
three  or  four  succeeding  years,  the  paper  having 
stood,  as  it  had  stood  during  the  Greenback  craze, 
for  sound  money,  was  the  property  in  danger.  It 
cost  more  of  labor  and  patience  to  save  it  from 
destruction  than  it  had  cost  to  create  it  thirty  years 
before.  Happily  Mr.  Haldeman  lived  to  see  the 
rescue  complete,  the  tide  turned  and  the  future  safe. 

VI 

A  newspaper,  like  a  woman,  must  not  only  be 
honest,  but  must  seem  to  be  honest;  acts  of  levity, 
loose  unbecoming  expressions  or  behavior — though 
never  so  innocent — tending  in  the  one  and  in  the 
other  to  lower  reputation  and  discredit  character. 
During  my  career  I  have  proceeded  under  a  con- 
fident belief  in  this  principle  of  newspaper  ethics 
and  an  unfailing  recognition  of  its  mandates.  I 
truly  believe  that  next  after  business  integrity  in 
newspaper  management  comes  disinterestedness  in 
the  public  service,  and  next  after  disinterestedness 
come  moderation  and  intelligence,  cleanliness  and 
[180] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

good  feeling,  in  dealing  with  affairs  and  its  read- 
ers. 

From  that  blessed  Sunday  morning,  November 
8,  1868,  to  this  good  day,  I  have  known  no  other 
life  and  had  no  other  aim.  Those  were  indeed 
parlous  times.  It  was  an  era  of  transition.  Upon 
the  field  of  battle,  after  four  years  of  deadly  but 
unequal  combat,  the  North  had  vanquished  (the 
South.  The  victor  stood  like  a  giant,  with  blood 
aflame,  eyes  dilate  and  hands  uplifted  again  to 
strike.  The  victim  lay  prostrate.  Save  self-respect 
and  manhood  all  was  lost.  Clasping  its  memories 
to  its  bosom  the  South  sank  helpless  amid  the  wreck 
of  its  fortunes,  whilst  the  North,  the  benign  in- 
fluence of  the  great  Lincoln  withdrawn,  proceeded 
to  decide  its  fate.  To  this  ghastly  end  had  come 
slavery  and  secession,  and  all  the  pomp,  pride  and 
circumstance  of  the  Confederacy.  To  this  bitter 
end  had  come  the  soldiership  of  Lee  and  Jackson 
and  Johnston  and  the  myriads  of  brave  men  who 
followed  them. 

The  single  Constitutional  barrier  that  had  stood 
between  the  people  of  the  stricken  section  and 
political  extinction  was  about  to  be  removed  by  the 
exit  of  Andrew  Johnson  from  the  White  House. 

[181] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

In  his  place  a  man  of  blood  and  iron — for  such  was 
the  estimate  at  that  time  placed  upon  Grant — had 
been  elected  President.  The  Republicans  in  Con- 
gress, checked  for  a  time  by  Johnson,  were  at 
length  to  have  entire  sway  under  Thaddeus  Stev- 
ens. Reconstruction  was  to  be  thorough  and 
merciless.  To  meet  these  conditions  was  the  first 
requirement  of  the  Courier- Journal,  a  newspaper 
conducted  by  outlawed  rebels  and  published  on  the 
sectional  border  line.  The  task  was  not  an  easy 
one. 

There  is  never  a  cause  so  weak  that  it  does  not 
stir  into  ill-timed  activity  some  wild,  unpractical 
zealots  who  imagine  it  strong.  There  is  never  a 
cause  so  just  but  that  the  malevolent  and  the  mer- 
cenary will  seek  to  trade  upon  it.  The  South  was 
helpless;  the  one  thing  needful  was  to  get  it  on  its 
feet,  and  though  the  bravest  and  the  wisest  saw  this 
plainly  enough  there  came  to  the  front — particu- 
larly in  Kentucky — a  small  but  noisy  body  of  poli- 
ticians who  had  only  worked  themselves  into  a  state 
of  war  when  it  was  too  late,  and  who  with  more  or 
less  of  aggression,  insisted  that  "the  states  lately  in 
rebellion"  still  had  rights,  which  they  were  able  to 
[182] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

maintain  and  which  the  North  could  be  forced  to 
respect. 

I  was  of  a  different  opinion.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  whatever  of  right  might  exist  the  South  was 
at  the  mercy  of  the  North;  that  the  radical  party 
led  by  Stevens  and  Wade  dominated  the  North 
and  could  dictate  its  own  terms ;  and  that  the  short- 
est way  round  lay  in  that  course  which  was  best 
calculated  to  disarm  radicalism  by  an  intelligent 
appeal  to  the  business  interests  and  conservative 
elements  of  Northern  society,  supported  by  a 
domestic  policy  of  justice  alike  to  whites  and 
blacks. 

Though  the  institution  of  African  slavery  was 
gone  the  negro  continued  the  subject  of  savage 
contention.  I  urged  that  he  be  taken  out  of  the 
arena  of  agitation,  and  my  way  of  taking  him  out 
was  to  concede  him  his  legal  and  civil  rights.  The 
lately  ratified  Constitutional  Amendments,  I  con- 
tended, were  the  real  Treaty  of  Peace  between  the 
North  and  South.  The  recognition  of  these  Amend- 
ments in  good  faith  by  the  white  people  of  the 
South  was  indispensable  to  that  perfect  peace 
which  was  desired  by  the  best  people  of  both  sec- 
tions.   The  political  emancipation  of  the  blacks  was 

[183] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

essential  to  the  moral  emancipation  of  the  whites. 
With  the  disappearence  of  the  negro  question  as 
cause  of  agitation,  I  argued,  radicalism  of  the  in- 
tense, proscriptive  sort  would  die  out;  the  liberty- 
loving,  patriotic  people  of  the  North  would  assert 
themselves ;  and,  this  one  obstacle  to  a  better  under- 
standing removed,  the  restoration  of  Constitu- 
tional Government  would  follow,  being  a  matter  of 
momentous  concern  to  the  body  of  the  people  both 
North  and  South. 

Such  a  policy  of  conciliation  suited  the  Southern 
extremists  as  little  as  it  suited  the  Northern  ex- 
tremists. It  took  from  the  politicians  their  best 
card.  South  no  less  than  North,  "the  bloody  shirt" 
was  trumps.  It  could  always  be  played.  It  was 
easy  to  play  it  and  it  never  failed  to  catch  the  un- 
thinking and  to  arouse  the  excitable.  What  cared 
the  perennial  candidate  so  he  got  votes  enough? 
What  cared  the  professional  agitator  so  his  appeals 
to  passion  brought  him  his  audience? 

It  is  a  fact  that  until  Lamar  delivered  his  eulogy 
on  Sumner  not  a  Southern  man  of  prominence 
used  language  calculated  to  placate  the  North,  and 
between  Lamar  and  Grady  there  was  an  interval 
of  fifteen  years.  There  was  not  a  Democratic  press 
[184] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

worthy  the  name  either  North  or  South.  During 
those  evil  days  the  Courier-Journal  stood  alone, 
having  no  party  or  organized  following.  At  length 
it  was  joined  on  the  Northern  side  by  Greeley. 
Then  Schurz  raised  his  mighty  voice.  Then  came 
the  great  liberal  movement  of  1871-72,  with  its 
brilliant  but  ill-starred  campaign  and  its  tragic 
finale;  and  then  there  set  in  what,  for  a  season, 
seemed  the  deluge. 

But  the  cause  of  Constitutional  Government  was 
not  dead.  It  had  been  merely  dormant.  Cham- 
pions began  to  appear  in  unexpected  quarters.  New 
men  spoke  up,  North  and  South.  In  spite  of  the 
Republican  landslide  of  1872,  in  1874  the  Demo- 
crats swept  the  Empire  State.  They  carried  the 
popular  branch  of  Congress  by  an  overwhelming 
majority.  In  the  Senate  they  had  a  respectable  mi- 
nority, with  Thurman  and  Bayard  to  lead  it.  In 
the  House  Randall  and  Kerr  and  Cox,  Lamar, 
Beck  and  Knott  were  about  to  be  reenforced  by 
Hill  and  Tucker  and  Mills  and  Gibson.  The  logic 
of  events  was  at  length  subduing  the  rodomontade 
of  soap-box  oratory.  Empty  rant  was  to  yield  to 
reason.  For  all  its  mischances  and  melancholy  end- 
ing the  .Greeley  campaign  had  shortened  the  dis- 
tance across  the  bloody  chasm. 

[185] 


CHAPTER  THE  EIGHTH 

FEMINISM    AND    WOMAN    SUFFRAGE  —  THE    ADVEN- 
TURESS    IN     POLITICS     AND     SOCIETY — A     REAL 

HEROINE 

I 

IT  WOULD  not  be  the  writer  of  this  narrative 
if  he  did  not  interject  certain  opinions  of  his 
own  which  parties  and  politicians,  even  his  news- 
paper colleagues,  have  been  wont  to  regard  as 
peculiar.  By  common  repute  he  has  been  an  all- 
round  old-line  Democrat  of  the  regulation  sort. 
Yet  on  the  three  leading  national  questions  of  the 
last  fifty  years — the  Negro  question,  the  Greenback 
question  and  the  Free  Silver  question — he  has 
challenged  and  antagonized  the  general  direction 
of  that  party.  He  takes  some  pride  to  himself  that 
in  each  instance  the  result  vindicated  alike  his  fore- 
cast and  his  insubordination. 

To  one  who  witnessed  the  break-up  of  the  Whig 
party  in  1853  and  of  the  Democratic  Party  in  1860 
the  plight  in  which  parties  find  themselves  at  this 
[186] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

time  may  be  described  as  at  least,  suggestive.  The 
feeling  is  at  once  to  laugh  and  to  whistle.  Too  much 
"fuss  and  feathers"  in  Winfield  Scott  did  the  busi- 
ness for  the  Whigs.  Too  much  "bearded  lady"  in 
Charles  Evans  Hughes  perhaps  cooked  the  goose 
of  the  Republicans.  Too  much  Wilson — but  let  me 
not  fall  into  Use  majeste.  The  Whigs  went  into 
Know-Nothingism  and  Free  Soilism.  Will  the 
Democrats  go  into  Prohibition  and  paternalism? 
And  the  Republicans 

The  old  sectional  alignment  of  North  and  South 
has  been  changed  to  East  and  West. 

For  the  time  being  the  politicians  of  both 
parties  are  in  something  of  a  funk.  It  is  the  nature 
of  parties  thus  situate  to  fancy  that  there  is  no 
hereafter,  riding  in  their  dire  confusion  headlong 
for  a  fall.  Little  other  than  the  labels  being  left, 
nobody  can  tell  what  will  happen  to  either. 

Progressivism  seems  the  cant  of  the  indifferent. 
Accentuated  by  the  indecisive  vote  in  the  elections 
and  heralded  by  an  ambitious  President  who  writes 
Humanity  bigger  than  he  writes  the  United  States, 
and  is  accused  of  aspiring  to  world  leadership, 
democracy  unterrified  and  unde.nled — the  democ- 
racy   of    Jefferson,    Jackson    and    Tilden    an- 

[187] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

cient  history — has  become  a  back  number.  Yet  our 
officials  still  swear  to  a  Constitution.  We  have  not 
eliminated  state  lines.  State  rights  are  not  wholly 
dead. 

The  fight  between  capital  and  labor  is  on.  No 
one  can  predict  where  it  will  end.  Shall  it  prove 
another  irrepressible  conflict?  Are  its  issues  irre- 
concilable? Must  the  alternative  of  the  future  lie 
between  Socialism  and  Civil  War,  or  both?  Prog- 
ress! Progress!  Shall  there  be  no  stability  in 
either  actualities  or  principles?  And — and — what 
about  the  Bolsheviki? 

II 

Parties,  like  men,  have  their  ups  and  downs. 
Like  machines  they  get  out  of  whack  and  line. 
First  it  was  the  Federalists,  then  the  Whigs,  and 
then  the  Democrats.  Then  came  the  Republicans. 
And  then,  after  a  long  interruption,  the  Democrats 
again.  English  political  experience  repeats  itself 
in  America. 

A  taking  label  is  as  valuable  to  a  party  as  it  is 

to  a  nostrum.     It  becomes  in  time  an  asset.    We 

are  told  that  a  fool  is  born  every  minute,  and,  the 

average  man  being  something  of  a  fool,  the  label 

[188] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

easily  catches  him.  Hence  the  Democratic  Party 
and  the  Republican  Party. 

The  old  Whig  Party  went  to  pieces  on  the  rocks 
of  sectionalism.  The  institution  of  African  slavery 
arrived  upon  the  scene  at  length  as  the  paramount 
political  issue.  The  North,  which  brought  the 
Africans  here  in  its  ships,  finding  slave  labor  un- 
profitable, sold  its  slaves  to  the  South  at  a  good 
price,  and  turned  pious.  The  South  took  the  bait 
and  went  crazy. 

Finally,  we  had  a  pretty  kettle  of  fish.  Just  as 
the  Prohibitionists  are  going  to  convert  mortals 
into  angels  overnight  by  act  of  assembly — or  still 
better,  by  Constitutional  amendment — were  the 
short-haired  women  and  the  long-haired  men  of 
Boston  going  to  make  a  white  man  out  of  the  black 
man  by  Abolition.  The  Southern  Whigs  could  not 
see  it  and  would  not  stand  for  it.  So  they  fell  in 
behind  the  Democrats.  The  Northern  Whigs,  hav- 
ing nowhere  else  to  go,  joined  the  Republicans. 

The  wise  men  of  both  sections  saw  danger  ahead. 
The  North  was  warned  that  the  South  would  fight, 
the  South,  that  if  it  did  it  went  against  incredible 
odds.  Neither  would  take  the  warning.  Party 
spirit  ran  wild.    Extremism  had  its  fling.    Thus  a 

[189] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

long,  bloody  and  costly  War  of  Sections — a 
fraternal  war  if  ever  there  was  one — brought  on  by 
alternating  intolerance,  the  politicians  of  both 
sides  gambling  upon  the  credulity  and  ignorance  of 
the  people. 

Hindsight  is  readier,  certainly  surer,  than  fore- 
sight. It  comes  easier  and  shows  clearer.  Any- 
body can  now  see  that  the  slavery  problem  might 
have  had  a  less  ruinous  solution;  that  the  moral 
issue  might  have  been  compromised  from  time  to 
time  and  in  the  end  disposed  of.  Slave  labor  even 
at  the  South  had  shown  itself  illusory,  costly  and 
clumsy.  The  institution  untenable,  modern  thought 
against  it,  from  the  first  it  was  doomed. 

But  the  extremists  would  not  have  it.  Each 
played  to  the  lead  of  the  other.  Whilst  Wendell 
Phillips  was  preaching  the  equality  of  races,  death 
to  the  slaveholders  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  at 
the  North,  William  Lowndes  Yancey  was  exclaim- 
ing that  cotton  was  king  at  the  South,  and,  to  es- 
tablish these  false  propositions,  millions  of  good 
Americans  proceeded  to  cut  one  another's  throats. 

There  were  agitators  and  agitators  in  those  days 
as  there  are  in  these.  The  agitator,  like  the  poor, 
we  have  always  with  us.  It  used  to  be  said  even  at 
[190] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  North  that  Wendell  Phillips  was  just  a  clever 
comedian.  William  Lowndes  Yancey  was  scarcely 
that.  He  was  a  serious,  sincere,  untraveled  pro- 
vincial, possessing  unusual  gifts  of  oratory.  He 
had  the  misfortune  to  kill  a  friend  in  a  duel  when 
a  young  man,  and  the  tragedy  shadowed  his  life. 
He  clung  to  his  plantation  and  rarely  went  away 
from  home.  When  sent  to  Europe  by  the  South  as 
its  Ambassador  in  1861,  he  discovered  the  futility 
of  his  scheme  of  a  Southern  confederacy,  and,  see- 
ing the  cornerstone  of  the  philosophy  on  which  he 
had  constructed  his  pretty  fabric,  overthrown,  he 
came  home  despairing,  to  die  of  a  broken  heart. 

The  moral  alike  for  governments  and  men  is: 
Keep  the  middle  of  the  road. 

in 

Which  brings  us  to  Feminism.  I  will  not  write 
Woman  Suffrage,  for  that  is  an  accomplished  fact 
— for  good  or  evil  we  shall  presently  be  better  able 
to  determine. 

Life  is  an  adventure  and  all  of  us  adventurers — 
saving  that  the  word  presses  somewhat  harder  upon 
the  woman  than  the  man — most  things  do  in  fact, 
whereby  she  is  given  greater  endurance — leaving  to 

[191] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

men  the  duty  of  caring  for  the  women;  and,  if 
need  be,  looking  death  squarely  and  defiantly  in 
the  face. 

The  world  often  puts  the  artificial  before  the 
actual ;  but  under  the  dispensation  of  the  Christian 
civilization — derived  from  the  Hebraic — the  family 
requiring  a  head,  headship  is  assigned  to  the  male. 
This  male  is  commonly  not  much  to  speak  of  for 
beauty  of  form  or  decency  of  behavior.  He  is 
made  purposely  tough  for  work  and  fight.  He 
gets  toughened  by  outer  contact.  But  back  of  all 
are  the  women,  the  children  and  the  home. 

I  have  been  fighting  the  woman's  battle  for 
equality  in  the  things  that  count,  all  my  life.  I 
would  despise  myself  if  I  had  not  been.  In  con- 
testing precipitate  universal  suffrage  for  women, 
I  conceived  that  I  was  still  fighting  the  woman's 
battle. 

We  can  escape  none  of  Nature's  laws.  But  we 
need  not  handicap  ourselves  with  artificial  laws. 
At  best,  life  is  an  experiment,  Death  the  final  ad- 
venture. Feminism  seems  to  me  its  next  of  kin; 
still  we  may  not  call  the  woman  who  assails  the 
soap  boxes — even  those  that  antic  about  the  White 
House  gates — by  the  opprobrious  terms  of  ad- 
[192] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

venturess.  Where  such  a  one  is  not  a  lunatic  she  is 
a  nuisance.    There  are  women  and  women. 

We  may  leave  out  of  account  the  shady  ladies  of 
history.  Neither  Aspasia  nor  Lucrezia  Borgia 
nor  the  Marquise  de  Brinvilliers  could  with  ac- 
curacy be  called  an  adventuress.  The  term  is  of 
later  date.  Its  origin  and  growth  have  arisen  out 
of  the  complexities  of  modern  society. 

In  fiction  Milady  and  Madame  MarnefTe  come 
in  for  first  honors — in  each  the  leopard  crossed  on 
the  serpent  and  united  under  a  petticoat,  beauti- 
ful and  wicked — but  since  the  Balzac  and  Dumas 
days  the  story-tellers  and  stage-mongers  have  made 
exceeding  free  with  the  type,  and  we  have  between 
Herman  Merivale's  Stephanie  de  Mohrivart  and 
Victorien  Sardou's  Zica  a  very  theater — or  shall 
we  say  a  charnel  house — of  the  woman  with  the 
past;  usually  portrayed  as  the  victim  of  circum- 
stance; unprincipled  through  cruel  experience;  in- 
sensible through  lack  of  conscience;  sexless  in  soul, 
but  a  siren  in  seductive  arts;  cold  as  ice;  hard  as 
iron;  implacable  as  the  grave,  pursuing  her  ends 
with  force  of  will,  intellectual  audacity  and  elegance 
of  manner,  yet,  beneath  this  brilliant  depravity, 
capable  of  self-pity,  yielding  anon  in  moments  of 

[193] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

depression  to  a  sudden  gleam  of  human  tenderness 
and  a  certain  regret  for  the  innocence  she  has  lost. 

Such  a  one  is  sometimes,  though  seldom,  met  in 
real  life.  But  many  pretenders  may  be  encountered 
at  Monte  Carlo  and  other  European  resorts.  They 
range  from  the  Parisian  cocotte,  signalized  by  her 
chic  apparel,  to  the  fashionable  divorcee  who  in  try- 
ing her  luck  at  the  tables  keeps  a  sharp  lookout  for 
the  elderly  gent  with  the  wad,  often  fooled  by  the 
enterprising  sport  who  has  been  there  before. 

These  are  out  and  out  professional  adventuresses. 
There  are  other  adventuresses,  however,  than  those 
of  the  story  and  the  stage,  the  casino  and  the 
cabaret.  The  woman  with  the  past  becomes  the 
girl  with  the  future. 

Curiously  enough  this  latter  is  mainly,  almost  ex- 
clusively, recruited  from  our  countrywomen,  who  to 
an  abnormal  passion  for  foreign  titles  join  surpass- 
ing ignorance  of  foreign  society.  Thus  she  is  ready 
to  the  hand  of  the  Continental  fortune  seeker 
masquerading  as  a  nobleman — occasionally  but  not 
often  the  black  sheep  of  some  noble  family — carry- 
ing not  a  bona  fide  but  a  courtesy  title — the  count 
and  the  no-account,  the  lord  and  the  Lord  knows 
who!  The  Yankee  girl  with  a  dot  had  become  be- 
[194] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

fore  the  world  war  a  regular  quarry  for  impecu- 
nious aristocrats  and  clever  crooks,  the  matrimo- 
nial results  tragic  in  their  frequency  and  squalor. 

Another  curious  circumstance  is  the  readiness 
with  which  the  American  newspaper  tumbles  to 
these  frauds.  The  yellow  press  especially  luxuriates 
in  them:  woodcuts  the  callow  bedizened  bride,  the 
jaded  game-worn  groom;  dilates  upon  the  big 
money  interchanged ;  glows  over  the  tin-plate  stars 
and  imaginary  garters  and  pinchbeck  crowns;  and 
keeping  the  pictorial  paraphernalia  in  cold  but  not 
forgotten  storage  waits  for  the  inevitable  scandal, 
and  then,  with  lavish  exaggeration,  works  the  old 
story  over  again. 

These  newspapers  ring  all  the  sensational 
changes.  Now  it  is  the  wondrous  beauty  with  the 
cool  million,  who,  having  married  some  illegitimate 
of  a  minor  royal  house,  will  probably  be  the  next 
Queen  of  Rigmarolia,  and  now — ever  increasing 
the  dose — it  is  the  ten-million-dollar  widow  who  is 
going  to  marry  the  King  of  Pontarabia's  brother, 
and  may  thus  aspire  to  be  one  day  Empress  of 
Sahara. 

Old  European  travelers  can  recall  many  funny 
and  sometimes  melancholy  incidents — episodes — 

[195] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

histories — of  which  they  have  witnessed  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end,  carrying  the  self-same  denoue- 
ment and  lesson. 

IV 

As  there  are  women  and  women  there  are  many 
kinds  of  adventuresses ;  not  all  of  them  wicked  and 
detestable.  But,  good  or  bad,  the  lot  of  the  ad- 
venturess is  at  best  a  hard  lot.  Be  she  a  girl  with 
a  future  or  a  woman  with  a  past  she  is  still  a  woman, 
and  the  world  can  never  be  too  kind  to  its  women — 
the  child  bearers,  the  home  makers,  the  moral  light 
of  the  universe  as  they  meet  the  purpose  of  God 
and  Nature  and  seek  not  to  thwart  it  by  unsexing 
themselves  in  order  that  they  may  keep  step  with 
man  in  ways  of  self-indulgent  dalliance.  The  ad- 
venturess of  fiction  always  comes  to  grief.  But 
the  adventuress  in  real  life — the  prudent  ad- 
venturess who  draws  the  line  at  adultery — the 
would-be  leader  of  society  without  the  wealth — 
the  would-be  political  leader  without  the  masculine 
fiber — is  sure  of  disappointment  in  the  end. 

Take  the  agitation  over  Suffragism.    What  is  it 
that  the  woman  suffragette  expects  to  get?     No 
one  of  them  can,  or  does,  clearly  tell  us. 
[196] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

It  is  feminism,  rather  than  suffragism,  which  is 
dangerous.  Now  that  they  have  it,  my  fear  is  that 
the  leaders  will  not  stop  with  the  ballot  for  women. 
They  are  too  fond  of  the  spotlight.  It  has  become 
a  necessity  for  them.  If  all  women  should  fall  in 
with  them  there  would  be  nothing  of  womanhood 
left,  and  the  world  bereft  of  its  women  will  become 
a  masculine  harlotocracy. 

Let  me  repeat  that  I  have  been  fighting  wom- 
an's battles  in  one  way  and  another  all  my  life. 
I  am  not  opposed  to  Votes  for  Women.  But  I 
would  discriminate  and  educate,  and  even  at  that 
rate  I  would  limit  the  franchise  to  actual  taxpayers, 
and,  outside  of  these,  confine  it  to  charities,  correc- 
tions and  schools,  keeping  woman  away  from  the 
dirt  of  politics.  I  do  not  believe  the  ballot  will 
benefit  woman  and  cannot  help  thinking  that  in 
seeking  unlimited  and  precipitate  suffrage  the 
women  who  favor  it  are  off  their  reckoning!  I 
doubt  the  performances  got  up  to  exploit  it,  though 
somehow,  when  the  hikers  started  from  New  York 
to  Albany,  and  afterward  from  New  York  to 
Washington,  the  inspiring  thought  of  Bertha  von 
Hillern  came  back  to  me. 

I  am  sure  the  reader  never  heard  of  her.    As  it 

[197] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

makes  a  pretty  story  let  me  tell  it.  Many 
years  ago — don't  ask  me  how  many — there  was  a 
young  woman,  Bertha  von  Hillern  by  name,  a  poor 
art  student  seeking  money  enough  to  take  her 
abroad,  who  engaged  with  the  management  of  a 
hall  in  Louisville  to  walk  one  hundred  miles  around 
a  fixed  track  in  twenty-four  consecutive  hours. 
She  did  it.  Her  share  of  the  gate  money,  I  was 
told,  amounted  to  three  thousand  dollars. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  closing  scenes  of  the 
wondrous  test  of  courage  and  endurance.  She  was  a 
pretty,  fair-haired  thing,  a  trifle  undersized,  but 
shapely  and  sinewy.  The  vast  crowd  that  without 
much  diminution,  though  with  intermittent  changes, 
had  watched  her  from  start  to  finish,  began  to  grow 
tense  with  the  approach  to  the  end,  and  the  last 
hour  the  enthusiasm  was  overwhelming.  Wave 
upon  wave  of  cheering  followed  every  footstep  of 
the  plucky  girl,  rising  to  a  storm  of  exultation  as 
the  final  lap  was  reached. 

More  dead  than  alive,  but  game  to  the  core,  the 
little  heroine  was  carried  off  the  field,  a  winner, 
every  heart  throbbing  with  human  sympathy,  every 
eye  wet  with  proud  and  happy  tears.  It  is  not 
possible  adequately  to  describe  all  that  happened. 
[198] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

One  must  have  been  there  and  seen  it  fully  to  com- 
prehend the  glory  of  it. 

Touching  the  recent  Albany  and  Washington 
hikes  and  hikers  let  me  say  at  once  that  I  cannot 
approve  the  cause  of  Votes  for  women  as  I  had  ap- 
proved the  cause  of  Bertha  von  Hillern.  Where 
she  showed  heroic,  most  of  the  suffragettes  appear 
to  me  grotesque.  Where  her  aim  was  rational, 
their  aim  has  been  visionary.  To  me  the  younger 
of  them  seem  as  children  who  need  to  be  spanked 
and  kissed.  There  has  been  indeed  about  the  whole 
Suffrage  business  something  pitiful  and  comic. 

Often  I  have  felt  like  swearing  "You  idiots!" 
and  then  like  crying  "Poor  dears!"  But  I  have 
kept  on  with  them,  and  had  I  been  in  Albany  or 
Washington  I  would  have  caught  Rosalie  Jones 
in  my  arms,  and  before  she  could  say  "Jack  Robin- 
son" have  exclaimed:  "You  ridiculous  child,  go  and 
get  a  bath  and  put  on  some  pretty  clothes  and  come 
and  join  us  at  dinner  in  the  State  Banquet  Hall, 
duly  made  and  provided  for  you  and  the  rest  of  you 
delightful  sillies." 


[199] 


CHAPTER  THE  NINTH 

DR.  N0RVIN  GREEN JOSEPH  PULITZER CHESTER  A. 

ARTHUR — GENERAL  GRANT — THE  CASE  OF  FITZ 
JOHN  PORTER 

I 

TRUTH  we  are  told  is  stranger  than  fiction. 
I  have  found  it  so  in  the  knowledge  which  has 
variously  come  to  me  of  many  interesting  men  and 
women.  Of  these  Dr.  Norvin  Green  was  a  striking 
example.  To  have  sprung  from  humble  parentage 
in  the  wilds  of  Kentucky  and  to  die  at  the  head  of 
the  most  potential  corporation  in  the  world  —  to 
have  held  this  place  against  all  comers  by  force  of 
abilities  deemed  indispensable  to  its  welfare — to 
have  gone  the  while  his  ain  gait,  disdaining  the  pre- 
cepts of  Doctor  Franklin — who,  by  the  way,  did 
not  trouble  overmuch  to  follow  them  himself — 
seems  so  unusual  as  to  rival  the  most  stirring  stories 
of  the  novel  mongers. 

When  I  first  met  Doctor  Green  he  was  president 
of  a  Kentucky  railway  company.     He  had  been, 
[200] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

however,  one  of  the  organizers  of  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  Company.  He  deluded  himself 
for  a  little  by  political  ambitions.  He  wanted  to 
go  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  during 
a  legislative  session  of  prolonged  balloting  at 
Frankfort  he  missed  his  election  by  a  single  vote. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  he  would  have  cut  a 
considerable  figure  at  Washington.  His  talents 
were  constructive  rather  than  declamatory.  He 
was  called  to  a  greater  field — though  he  never 
thought  it  so — and  was  foremost  among  those  who 
developed  the  telegraph  system  of  the  country  al- 
most from  its  infancy.  He  possessed  the  daring 
of  the  typical  Kentuckian,  with  the  dead  calm  of 
the  stoic  philosopher;  imperturbable;  never  vexed 
or  querulous  or  excited;  denying  himself  none  of 
the  indulgences  of  the  gentleman  of  leisure.  We 
grew  to  be  constant  comrades  and  friends,  and  when 
he  returned  to  New  York  to  take  the  important 
post  which  to  the  end  of  his  days  he  filled  so  com- 
pletely his  office  in  the  Western  Union  Building  be- 
came my  downtown  headquarters. 

There  I  met  Jay  Gould  familiarly ;  and  resumed 
acquaintance  with  Russell  Sage,  whom  I  had  known 
when  a  lad  in  Washington,  he  a  hayseed  member 

[201] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  Congress;  and  occasionally  other  of  the  Wall 
Street  leaders.  In  a  small  way — though  not  for 
long — I  caught  the  stock-gambling  fever.  But  I 
was  on  the  "inside,"  and  it  was  a  cold  day  when  I 
did  not  "clean  up"  a  goodly  amount  to  waste  up- 
town in  the  evening.  I  may  say  that  I  gave  this 
over  through  sheer  disgust  of  acquiring  so  much 
and  such  easy  and  useless  money,  for,  having  no 
natural  love  of  money — no  aptitude  for  making 
money  breed — no  taste  for  getting  it  except  to 
spend  it — earning  by  my  own  accustomed  and 
fruitful  toil  always  a  sufficiency — the  distractions 
and  dissipations  it  brought  to  my  annual  vacations 
and  occasional  visits,  affronted  in  a  way  my  self- 
respect,  and  palled  upon  my  rather  eager  quest  of 
pleasure.  Money  is  purely  relative.  The  root  of 
all  evil,  too.  Too  much  of  it  may  bring  ills  as 
great  as  not  enough. 

At  the  outset  of  my  stock-gambling  experience 
I  was  one  day  in  the  office  of  President  Edward 
H.  Green,  of  the  Louisville  and  Nashville  Rail- 
way, no  relation  of  Dr.  Norvin  Green,  but  the  hus- 
band of  the  famous  Hetty  Green.  He  said  to  me, 
"How  are  you  in  stocks?" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  I. 
[202] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Why,"  he  said,  "do  you  buy  long,  or  short?  Are 
you  lucky  or  unlucky?" 

"You  are  talking  Greek  to  me,"  I  answered. 

"Didn't  you  ever  put  up  any  money  on  a  mar- 
gin? 

"Never." 

"Bless  me!  You  are  a  virgin.  I  want  to  try 
your  luck.  Look  over  this  stock  list  and  pick  a 
stock.  I  will  take  a  crack  at  it.  All  I  make  we'll 
divide,  and  all  we  lose  I'll  pay." 

"Will  you  leave  this  open  for  an  hour  or  two?" 

"What  is  the  matter  with  it — is  it  not  liberal 
enough?" 

"The  matter  is  that  I  am  going  over  to  the  West- 
ern Union  to  lunch.  The  Gould  party  is  to  sit  in 
with  the  Orton-Green  party  for  the  first  time  after 
their  fight,  and  I  am  asked  especially  to  be  there. 
I  may  pick  up  something." 

Big  Green,  as  he  was  called,  paused  a  moment 
reflectively.  "I  don't  want  any  tip — especially 
from  that  bunch,"  said  he.  "I  want  to  try  your 
virgin  luck.  But,  go  ahead,  and  let  me  know  this 
afternoon." 

At  luncheon  I  sat  at  Doctor  Green's  right,  Jay 
Gould  at  his  left.    For  the  first  and  last  time  in  its 

[203] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

history  wine  was  served  at  this  board;  Russell  Sage 
was  effusive  in  his  demonstrations  of  affection  and 
went  on  with  his  stories  of  my  boyhood ;  eveiy  one 
sought  to  take  the  chill  off  the  occasion ;  and  we  had 
a  most  enjoyable  time  instead  of  what  promised  to 
be  rather  a  frosty  formality.  When  the  rest  had 
departed,  leaving  Doctor  Green,  Mr.  Gould  and 
myself  at  table,  mindful  of  what  I  had  come  for,  in 
a  bantering  way  I  said  to  Doctor  Green:  "Now 
that  I  am  a  Wall  Street  ingenu,  why  don't  you  tell 
me  something?" 

Gould  leaned  across  the  table  and  said  in  his 
velvet  voice:  "Buy  Texas  Pacific." 

Two  or  three  days  after,  Texas  Pacific  fell  off 
sixty  points  or  more.  I  did  not  see  Big  Green 
again.  Five  or  six  months  later  I  received  from 
him  a  statement  of  account  which  I  could  never 
have  unraveled,  with  a  check  for  some  thousands  of 
dollars,  my  one-half  profit  on  such  and  such  an 
operation.    Texas  Pacific  had  come  back  again. 

Two  or  three  years  later  I  sat  at  Doctor  Green's 
table  with  Mr.  Gould,  just  as  we  had  sat  the  first 
day.    Mr.  Gould  recalled  the  circumstance. 

"I  did  not  think  I  could  afford  to  have  you 
lose  on  my  suggestion  and  I  went  to  cover  your 
[204] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

loss,  when  I  found  five  thousand  shares  of  Texas 
Pacific  transferred  on  the  books  of  the  company 
in  your  name.  I  knew  these  could  not  be  yours.  I 
thought  the  buyer  was  none  other  than  the  man  I 
was  after,  and  I  began  hammering  the  stock.  I 
have  been  curious  ever  since  to  make  sure  whether 
I  was  right." 

"Whom  did  you  suspect,  Mr.  Gould?"  I  asked. 

"My  suspect  was  Victor  Newcomb,"  he  replied. 

I  then  told  him  what  had  happened.  "Dear, 
dear,"  he  cried.  "Ned  Green!  Big  Green.  Well, 
well!  You  do  surprise  me.  I  would  rather  have 
done  him  a  favor  than  an  injury.  I  am  rejoiced  to 
learn  that  no  harm  was  done  and  that,  after  all, 
you  and  he  came  out  ahead." 

It  was  about  this  time  Jay  Gould  had  bought  of 
the  Thomas  A.  Scott  estate  a  New  York  daily 
newspaper  which,  in  spite  of  brilliant  writers  like 
Manton  Marble  and  William  Henry  Hurlbut,  had 
never  been  a  moneymaker.  This  was  the  World. 
He  offered  me  the  editorship  with  forty-nine  of  the 
hundred  shares  of  stock  on  very  easy  terms,  which 
nowise  tempted  me.  But  two  or  three  years  after, 
I  daresay  both  weary  and  hopeless  of  putting  up 
so  much  money  on  an  unyielding  investment,  he 

[205] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

was  willing  to  sell  outright,  and  Joseph  Pulitzer 
became  the  purchaser. 

His  career  is  another  illustration  of  the  saying 

that  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction. 

t.. 

ii 

Joseph  Pulitzer  and  I  came  together  familiarly 
at  the  Liberal  Republican  Convention,  which  met 
at  Cincinnati  in  1872 — the  convocation  of  cranks,  as 
it  was  called — and  nominated  Horace  Greeley  for 
President.  He  was  a  delegate  from  Missouri. 
Subsequent  events  threw  us  much  together.  He 
began  his  English  newspaper  experience  after  a 
kind  of  apprenticeship  on  a  German  daily  with 
Stilson  Hutchins,  another  interesting  character  of 
those  days.  It  was  from  Stilson  Hutchins  that  I 
learned  something  of  Pulitzer's  origin  and  begin- 
nings, for  he  never  spoke  much  of  himself. 

According  to  this  story  he  was  the  offspring  of 
a  runaway  marriage  between  a  subaltern  officer  in 
the  Austrian  service  and  a  Hungarian  lady  of  noble 
birth.  In  some  way  he  had  got  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  being  in  Boston,  a  wizened  youth  not  speaking 
a  word  of  English,  he  was  spirited  on  board  a  war- 
ship. Watching  his  chance  of  escape  he  leaped 
[206] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

overboard  in  the  darkness  of  night,  though  it  was 
the  dead  of  winter,  and  swam  ashore.  He  was 
found  unconscious  on  the  beach  by  some  charitable 
persons,  who  cared  for  him.  Thence  he  tramped  it 
to  St.  Louis,  where  he  heard  there  was  a  German 
colony,  and  found  work  on  a  coal  barge. 

It  was  here  that  the  journalistic  instinct  dawned 
upon  him.  He  began  to  carry  river  news  items  to 
the  Westliche  Post,  which  presently  took  him  on  its 
staff  of  regular  reporters. 

The  rest  was  easy.  He  learned  to  speak  and 
write  English,  was  transferred  to  the  paper  of 
which  Hutchins  was  the  head,  and  before  he  was 
five-and-twenty  became  a  local  figure. 

When  he  turned  up  in  New  York  with  an  offer 
to  purchase  the  World  we  met  as  old  friends.  Dur- 
ing the  interval  between  1872  and  1883  we  had  had 
a  runabout  in  Europe  and  I  was  able  to  render  him 
assistance  in  the  purchase  proceeding  he  was  having 
with  Gould.  When  this  was  completed  he  said  to 
me :  "You  are  at  entire  leisure ;  you  are  worse  than 
that,  you  are  wasting  your  time  about  the  clubs  and 
watering  places,  doing  no  good  for  yourself,  or  any- 
body else.  I  must  first  devote  myself  to  the  reor- 
ganization of  the  business  end  of  it.    Here  is  a  blank 

[207] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

check.  Fill  it  for  whatever  amount  you  please  and 
it  will  be  honored.  I  want  you  to  go  upstairs  and 
organize  my  editorial  force  for  me." 

Indignantly  I  replied:  "Go  to  the  devil — you 
have  not  money  enough — there  is  not  money  enough 
in  the  universe — to  buy  an  hour  of  my  season's 
loaf." 

A  year  later  I  found  him  occupying  with  his  fam- 
ily a  splendid  mansion  up  the  Hudson,  with  a  great 
stable  of  carriages  and  horses,  living  like  a  country 
gentleman,  going  to  the  World  office  about  time  for 
luncheon  and  coming  away  in  the  early  afternoon. 
I  passed  a  week-end  with  him.  To  me  it  seemed 
the  precursor  of  ruin.  His  second  payment  was 
yet  to  be  made.  Had  I  been  in  his  place  I  would 
have  been  taking  my  meals  in  an  adjacent  hotel, 
sleeping  on  a  cot  in  one  of  the  editorial  rooms  and 
working  fifteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four.  To 
me  it  seemed  dollars  to  doughnuts  that  he  would 
break  down  and  go  to  smash.  But  he  did  not — an- 
other case  of  destiny. 

I  was  abiding  with  my  family  at  Monte  Carlo, 

when  in  his  floating  palace,  the  Liberty,  he  came 

into  the  harbor  of  Mentone.     Then  he  bought  a 

shore  palace  at  Cap  Martin.    That  season,  and  the 

[208] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

next  two  or  three  seasons,  we  made  voyages  to- 
gether from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, visiting  the  islands,  especially  Corsica  and 
Elba,  shrines  of  Napoleon  whom  he  greatly  ad- 
mired. 

He  was  a  model  host.  He  had  surrounded  him- 
self with  every  luxury,  including  some  agreeable  re- 
tainers, and  lived  like  a  prince  aboard.  His  blind- 
ness had  already  overtaken  him.  Other  physical 
ailments  assailed  him.  But  no  word  of  complaint 
escaped  his  lips  and  he  rarely  failed  to  sit  at  the 
head  of  his  table.    It  was  both  splendid  and  pitiful. 

Absolute  authority  made  Pulitzer  a  tyrant.  He 
regarded  his  newspaper  ownership  as  an  autocracy. 
There  was  nothing  gentle  in  his  domination,  nor,  I 
might  say,  generous  either.  He  seriously  lacked  the 
sense  of  humor,  and  even  among  his  familiars  could 
never  take  a  joke.  His  love  of  money  was  by  no 
means  inordinate.  He  spent  it  freely  though  not 
wastefully  or  joyously,  for  the  possession  of  it 
rather  flattered  his  vanity  than  made  occasion  for 
pleasure.  Ability  of  varying  kinds  and  degrees  he 
had,  a  veritable  genius  for  journalism  and  a  real 
capacity  for  affection.  He  held  his  friends  at  good 
account  and  liked  to  have  them  about  him.    During 

[209] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  early  days  of  his  success  he  was  disposed  to 
overindulgence,  not  to  say  conviviality.  He  was 
fond  of  Rhine  wines  and  an  excellent  judge  of 
them,  keeping  a  varied  assortment  always  at  hand. 
Once,  upon  the  Liberty,  he  observed  that  I  pre- 
ferred a  certain  vintage.  "You  like  this  wine?"  he 
said  inquiringly.  I  assented,  and  he  said,  "I  have 
a  lot  of  it  at  home,  and  when  I  get  back  I  will  send 
you  some."  I  had  quite  forgotten  when,  many 
months  after,  there  came  to  me  a  crate  containing 
enough  to  last  me  a  life-time. 

He  had  a  retentive  memory  and  rarely  forgot 
anything.  I  could  recall  many  pleasurable  inci- 
dents of  our  prolonged  and  varied  intimacy.  We 
were  one  day  wandering  about  the  Montmartre  re- 
gion of  Paris  when  we  came  into  a  hole-in-the-wall 
where  they  were  playing  a  piece  called  "Les  Bri- 
gands." It  was  melodrama  to  the  very  marrow  of 
the  bones  of  the  Apaches  that  gathered  and  glared 
about.  In  those  days,  the  "indemnity"  paid  and 
the  "military  occupation"  withdrawn,  everything 
French  pre-figured  hatred  of  the  German,  and  be 
sure  "Les  Brigands"  made  the  most  of  this;  each 
"brigand"  a  beer-guzzling  Teuton;  each  hero  a 
dare-devil  Gaul;  and,  when  Joan  the  Maid,  hero- 
[210] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ine,  sent  Goetz  von  Berlichingen,  the  Vandal 
Chieftain,  sprawling  in  the  saw-dust,  there  was 
no  end  to  the  enthusiasm. 

"We  are  all  'brigands',"  said  Pulitzer  as  we  came 
away,  "differing  according  to  individual  character, 
to  race  and  pursuit.  Now,  if  I  were  writing  that 
play,  I  should  represent  the  villain  as  a  tyrannous 
City  Editor,  meanly  executing  the  orders  of  a 
niggardly  proprietor." 

"And  the  heroine?"  I  said. 

"She  should  be  a  beautiful  and  rich  young  lady," 
he  replied,  "who  buys  the  newspaper  and  marries 
the  cub — rescuing  genius  from  poverty  and  perse- 
cution." 

He  was  not  then  the  owner  of  the  World.  He 
had  not  created  the  Post-Dispatch,  or  even  met  the 
beautiful  woman  who  became  his  wife.  He  was  a 
youngster  of  five  or  six  and  twenty,  revisiting  the 
scenes  of  his  boyhood  on  the  beautiful  blue  Danube, 
and  taking  in  Paris  for  a  lark. 

in 

I  first  met  General  Grant  in  my  own  house.  I 
had  often  been  invited  to  his  house.  As  far  back  as 
1870  John  Russell  Young,  a  friend  from  boyhood, 

[211] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

came  with  an  invitation  to  pass  the  week-end  as 
the  President's  guest  at  Long  Branch.  Many  of 
my  friends  had  cottages  there.  Of  afternoons  and 
evenings  they  played  an  infinitesimal  game  of  draw 
poker. 

"John,"  my  answer  was,  "I  don't  dare  to  do  so. 
I  know  that  I  shall  fall  in  love  with  General  Grant. 
We  are  living  in  rough  times — particularly  in 
rough  party  times.  We  have  a  rough  presidential 
campaign  ahead  of  us.  If  I  go  down  to  the  seashore 
and  go  in  swimming  and  play  penny-ante  with  Gen- 
eral Grant  I  shall  not  be  able  to  do  my  duty." 

It  was  thus  that  after  the  general  had  gone  out 
of  office  and  made  the  famous  journey  round  the 
world,  and  had  come  to  visit  relatives  in  Kentucky, 
that  he  accepted  a  dinner  invitation  from  me,  and 
I  had  a  number  of  his  friends  to  meet  him. 

Among  these  were  Dr.  Richardson,  his  early 
schoolmaster  when  the  Grant  family  lived  at  Mays- 
ville,  and  Walter  Haldeman,  my  business  partner, 
a  Maysville  boy,  who  had  been  his  schoolmate  at 
the  Richardson  Academy,  and  General  Cerro  Gor- 
do Williams,  then  one  of  Kentucky's  Senators  in 
Congress,  and  erst  his  comrade  and  chum  when 
both  were  lieutenants  in  the  Mexican  War.  The 
[212] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

bars  were  down,  the  windows  were  shut  and  there 
was  no  end  of  hearty  hilarity.  Dr.  Richardson  had 
been  mentioned  by  Mr.  Haldeman  as  "the  only  man 
that  ever  licked  Grant,"  and  the  general  promptly 
retorted  "he  never  licked  me,"  when  the  good  old 
doctor  said,  "No,  Ulysses,  I  never  did — nor  Walter, 
either — for  you  two  were  the  best  boys  in  school." 

I  said  "General  Grant,  why  not  give  up  this 
beastly  politics,  buy  a  blue-grass  farm,  and  settle 
down  to  horse-raising  and  tobacco  growing  in  Ken- 
tucky?" And,  quick  as  a  flash — for  both  he  and  the 
company  perceived  that  it  was  "a  leading  question" 
— he  replied,  "Before  I  can  buy  a  farm  in  Kentucky 
I  shall  have  to  sell  a  farm  in  Missouri,"  which  left 
nothing  further  to  be  said. 

There  was  some  sparring  between  him  and  Gen- 
eral Williams  over  their  youthful  adventures. 
Finally  General  Williams,  one  of  the  readiest  and 
most  amusing  of  talkers,  returned  one  of  General 
Grant's  sallies  with,  "Anyhow,  I  know  of  a  man 
whose  life  you  took  unknown  to  yourself."  Then 
he  told  of  a  race  he  and  Grant  had  outside  of 
Galapa  in  1846.  "Don't  you  remember,"  he  said, 
"that  riding  ahead  of  me  you  came  upon  a  Mexican 
loaded  with  a  lot  of  milk  cans  piled  above  his  head 

[213] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  that  you  knocked  him  over  as  you  swept  by 
him?" 

"Yes,"  said  Grant,  "I  believed  if  I  stopped  or 
questioned  or  even  deflected  it  would  lose  me  the 
race.  I  have  not  thought  of  it  since.  But  now  that 
you  mention  it  I  recall  it  distinctly." 

"Well,"  Williams  continued,  "you  killed  him. 
Your  horse's  hoof  struck  him.  When,  seeing  I  was 
beaten,  I  rode  back,  his  head  was  split  wide  open. 
I  did  not  tell  you  at  the  time  because  I  knew  it 
would  cause  you  pain,  and  a  dead  greaser  more  or 
less  made  no  difference." 

Later  on  General  Grant  took  desk  room  in  Vic- 
tor Newcomb's  private  office  in  New  York.  There 
I  saw  much  of  him,  and  we  became  good  friends. 
He  was  the  most  interesting  of  men.  Soldierlike — 
monosyllabic — in  his  official  and  business  dealings 
he  threw  aside  all  formality  and  reserve  in  his  social 
intercourse,  delightfully  reminiscential,  indeed  a 
capital  story  teller.  I  do  not  wonder  that  he  had 
constant  and  disinterested  friends  who  loved  him 
sincerely. 

IV 

It  has  always  been  my  opinion  that  if  Chester  A. 
Arthur  had  been  named  by  the  Republicans  as  their 
[214] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

candidate  in  1884  they  would  have  carried  the  elec- 
tion, spite  of  what  Mr.  Blaine,  who  defeated  Arthur 
in  the  convention,  had  said  and  thought  about  the 
nomination  of  General  Sherman.  Arthur,  like 
Grant,  belonged  to  the  category  of  lovable  men  in 
public  life. 

There  was  a  gallant  captain  in  the  army  who  had 
slapped  his  colonel  in  the  face  on  parade.  Morally, 
as  man  to  man,  he  had  the  right  of  it.  But  military 
law  is  inexorable.  The  verdict  was  dismissal  from 
the  service.  I  went  with  the  poor  fellow's  wife  and 
her  sister  to  see  General  Hancock  at  Governor's 
Island.  It  was  a  most  affecting  meeting — the  gen- 
eral, tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks,  taking  them  into 
his  arms,  and,  when  he  could  speak,  saying:  "I  can 
do  nothing  but  hold  up  the  action  of  the  court  till 
Monday.  Your  recourse  is  the  President  and  a 
pardon;  I  will  recommend  it,  but" — putting  his 
hand  upon  my  shoulder — "here  is  the  man  to  get  the 
pardon  if  the  President  can  be  brought  to  see  the 
case  as  most  of  us  see  it." 

At  once  I  went  over  to  Washington,  taking 
Stephen  French  with  me.  When  we  entered  the 
President's  apartment  in  the  White  House  he  ad- 

[215] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

vanced  smiling  to  greet  us,  saying:  "I  know  what 
you  boys  are  after;  you  mean " 

"Yes,  Mr.  President,"  I  answered,  "we  do,  and 
if  ever " 

"I  have  thought  over  it,  sworn  over  it,  and  prayed 
over  it,"  he  said,  "and  I  am  going  to  pardon  him!" 


Another  illustrative  incident  happened  during 
the  Arthur  Administration.  The  dismissal  of  Gen. 
Fitz- John  Porter  from  the  army  had  been  the  sub- 
ject of  more  or  less  acrimonious  controversy.  Dur- 
ing nearly  two  decades  this  had  raged  in  army 
circles.  At  length  the  friends  of  Porter,  led  by 
Curtin  and  Slocum,  succeeded  in  passing  a  relief 
measure  through  Congress.  They  were  in  ecstasies. 
That  there  might  be  a  presidential  objection  had 
not  crossed  their  minds. 

Senator  McDonald,  of  Indiana,  a  near  friend  of 
General  Porter,  and  a  man  of  rare  worldly  wisdom, 
knew  better.  Without  consulting  them  he  came  to 
me. 

"You  are  personally  close  to  the  President,"  said 
he,  "and  you  must  know  that  if  this  bill  gets  to  the 
White  House  he  will  veto  it.  With  the  Republican 
[216] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

National  Convention  directly  ahead  he  is  bound  to 
veto  it.  It  must  not  be  allowed  to  get  to  him ;  and 
you  are  the  man  to  stop  it.  They  will  listen  to  you 
and  will  not  listen  to  me." 

First  of  all,  I  went  to  the  White  House. 

"Mr.  President,"  I  said,  "I  want  you  to  authorize 
me  to  tell  Curtin  and  Slocum  not  to  send  the  Fitz- 
John  Porter  bill  to  you." 

"Why?"  he  answered. 

"Because,"  said  I,  "you  will  have  to  veto  it;  and, 
with  the  Frelinghuysens  wild  for  it,  as  well  as  others 
of  your  nearest  friends,  I  am  sure  you  don't  want 
to  be  obliged  to  do  that.  With  your  word  to  me  I 
can  stop  it,  and  have  it  for  the  present  at  least  held 
up." 

His  answer  was,  "Go  ahead." 

Then  I  went  to  the  Capitol.  Curtin  and  Slocum 
were  in  a  state  of  mind.  It  was  hard  to  make  them 
understand  or  believe  what  I  told  them. 

"Now,  gentlemen,"  I  continued,  "I  don't  mean 
to  argue  the  case.  It  is  not  debatable.  I  am  just 
from  the  White  House,  and  I  am  authorized  by  the 
President  to  say  that  if  you  send  this  bill  to  him  he 
will  veto  it." 

[217] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

That,  of  course,  settled  it.  They  held  it  up.  But 
after  the  presidential  election  it  reached  Arthur, 
and  he  did  veto  it.  Not  till  Cleveland  came  in  did 
Porter  obtain  his  restoration. 

Curiously  enough  General  Grant  approved  this. 
I  had  listened  to  the  debate  in  the  House — es- 
pecially the  masterly  speech  of  William  Walter 
Phelps — without  attaining  a  clear  understanding  of 
the  many  points  at  issue.  I  said  as  much  to  General 
Grant. 

"Why,"  he  replied,  "the  case  is  as  simple  as  A, 
B,  C.    Let  me  show  you." 

Then,  with  a  pencil  he  traced  the  Second  Bull 
Run  battlefield,  the  location  of  troops,  both  Federal 
and  Confederate,  and  the  exact  passage  in  the  ac- 
tion which  had  compromised  General  Porter. 

"If  Porter  had  done  what  he  was  ordered  to  do," 
he  went  on,  "Pope  and  his  army  would  have  been 
annihilated.  In  point  of  fact  Porter  saved  Pope's 
Army."  Then  he  paused  and  added:  "I  did  not  at 
the  outset  know  this.  I  was  for  a  time  of  a  different 
opinion  and  on  the  other  side.  It  was  Longstreet's 
testimony — which  had  not  been  before  the  first 
Court  of  Inquiry  that  convicted  Porter — which 
vindicated  him  and  convinced  me." 
[218] 


CHAPTER  THE  TENTH 

OF     LIARS     AND     LYING WOMAN     SUFFRAGE     AND 

FEMINISM THE         PROFESSIONAL         FEMALE 

PARTIES,  POLITICS  AND  POLITICIANS  IN  AMERICA 

ALL  is  fair  in  love  and  war,  the  saying  hath  it. 
"Lord!"  cried  the  most  delightful  of  liars, 
"How  this  world  is  given  to  lying."  Yea,  and  how 
exigency  quickens  invention  and  promotes  deceit. 

Just  after  the  war  of  sections  I  was  riding  in  a 
train  with  Samuel  Bowles,  who  took  a  great  interest 
in  things  Southern.  He  had  been  impressed  by  a 
newspaper  known  as  The  Chattanooga  Rebel  and, 
as  I  had  been  its  editor,  put  innumerable  questions 
to  me  about  it  and  its  affairs.  Among  these  he 
asked  how  great  had  been  its  circulation.  Without 
explaining  that  often  an  entire  company,  in  some 
cases  an  entire  regiment,  subscribed  for  a  few 
copies,  or  a  single  copy,  I  answered :  "I  don't  know 
precisely,  but  somewhere  near  a  hundred  thousand, 

[219] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  take  it."  Then  he  said:  "Where  did  you  get 
your  press  power?" 

This  was,  of  course,  a  poser,  but  it  did  not  em- 
barrass me  in  the  least.  I  was  committed,  and  with- 
out a  moment's  thought  I  proceeded  with  an 
imaginary  explanation  which  he  afterward  declared 
had  been  altogether  satisfying.  The  story  was  too 
good  to  keep — maybe  conscience  pricked — and  in  a 
chummy  talk  later  along  I  laughingly  confessed. 

"You  should  tell  that  in  your  dinner  speech  to- 
night," he  said.  "If  you  tell  it  as  you  have  just 
told  it  to  me,  it  will  make  a  hit,"  and  I  did. 

I  give  it  as  the  opinion  of  a  long  life  of  experience 
and  observation  that  the  newspaper  press,  whatever 
its  delinquencies,  is  not  a  common  liar,  but  the  most 
habitual  of  truth  tellers.  It  is  growing  on  its 
editorial  page  I  fear  a  little  vapid  and  colorless. 
But  there  is  a  general  and  ever-present  purpose  to 
print  the  facts  and  give  the  public  the  opportunity 
to  reach  its  own  conclusions. 

There  are  liars  and  liars,  lying  and  lying.  It  is, 
with  a  single  exception,  the  most  universal  and 
venial  of  human  frailties.  We  have  at  least  three 
kinds  of  lying  and  species,  or  types,  of  liars — first, 
the  common,  ordinary,  everyday  liar,  who  lies  with- 
[220] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

out  rime  or  reason,  rule  or  compass,  aim,  intent  or 
interest,  in  whose  mind  the  partition  between  truth 
and  falsehood  has  fallen  down ;  then  the  sensational, 
imaginative  liar,  who  has  a  tale  to  tell ;  and,  finally, 
the  mean,  malicious  liar,  who  would  injure  his 
neighbor. 

This  last  is,  indeed,  but  rare.  Human  nature  is 
at  its  base  amicable,  because  if  nothing  hinders  it 
wants  to  please.  All  of  us,  however,  are  more  or 
less  its  unconscious  victims. 

Competition  is  not  alone  the  life  of  trade;  it  is 
the  life  of  life ;  for  each  of  us  is  in  one  way,  or  an- 
other, competitive.  There  is  but  one  disinterested 
person  in  the  world,  the  mother  who  whether  of  the 
human  or  animal  kingdom,  will  die  for  her  young. 
Yet,  after  all,  hers,  too,  is  a  kind  of  selfishness. 

The  woman  is  becoming  over  much  a  professional 
female.  It  is  of  importance  that  we  begin  to  con- 
sider her  as  a  new  species,  having  enjoyed  her 
beauty  long  enough.  Is  the  world  on  the  way  to 
organic  revolution?  If  I  were  a  young  man  I  should 
not  care  to  be  the  lover  of  a  professional  female. 
As  an  old  man  I  have  affectionate  relations  with  a 
number  of  suffragettes,  as  they  dare  not  deny ;  that 
is  to  say,  I  long  ago  accepted  woman  suffrage  as 

[221] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

inevitable,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  depending  upon 

whether  the  woman's  movement  is  going  to  stop 

with  suffrage  or  run  into  feminism,  changing  the 

character  of  woman  and  her  relations  to  men  and 

with  man. 

II 

I  have  never  made  party  differences  the  occasion 
of  personal  quarrel  or  estrangement.  On  the  con- 
trary, though  I  have  been  always  called  a  Democrat, 
I  have  many  near  and  dear  friends  among  the  Re- 
publicans. Politics  is  not  war.  Politics  would  not 
be  war  even  if  the  politicians  were  consistent  and 
honest.  But  there  are  among  them  so  many 
changelings,  cheats  and  rogues. 

Then,  in  politics  as  elsewhere,  circumstances  alter 
cases.  I  have  as  a  rule  thought  very  little  of  parties 
as  parties,  professional  politicians  and  party  lead- 
ers, and  I  think  less  of  them  as  I  grow  older.  The 
politician  and  the  auctioneer  might  be  described 
like  the  lunatic,  the  lover  and  the  poet,  as  "of 
imagination  all  compact."  One  sees  more  mares' 
nests  than  would  fill  a  book ;  the  other  pure  gold  in 
pinchbeck  wares ;  and  both  are  out  for  gudgeons. 

It  is  the  habit — nay,  the  business — of  the  party 
speaker  when  he  mounts  the  raging  stump  to  roar 
[222] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

his  platitudes  into  the  ears  of  those  who  have  the 
simplicity  to  listen,  though  neither  edified  nor  en- 
lightened ;  to  aver  that  the  horse  he  rides  is  sixteen 
feet  high ;  that  the  candidate  he  supports  is  a  giant ; 
and  that  he  himself  is  no  small  figure  of  a  man. 

Thus  he  resembles  the  auctioneer.  But  it  is  the 
mock  auctioneer  whom  he  resembles;  his  stock  in 
trade  being  largely,  if  not  altogether,  fraudulent. 
The  success  which  at  the  outset  of  party  welfare  at- 
tended this  legalized  confidence  game  drew  into  it 
more  and  more  players.  For  a  long  time  they  de- 
ceived themselves  almost  as  much  as  the  voters. 
They  had  not  become  professional.  They  were 
amateur.  Many  of  them  played  for  sheer  love  of 
the  gamble.  There  were  rules  to  regulate  the  play. 
But  as  time  passed  and  voters  multiplied,  the  pop- 
ular preoccupation  increased  the  temptations  and 
opportunities  for  gain,  inviting  the  enterprising, 
the  skillful  and  the  corrupt  to  reconstitute  patriot- 
ism into  a  commodity  and  to  organize  public  opinion 
into  a  bill  of  lading.  Thus  politics  as  a  trade, 
parties  as  trademarks,  the  politicians,  like  harlots, 
plying  their  vocation. 

Now  and  again  an  able,  honest  and  brave  man, 
who  aims  at  better  things,  appears.    In  the  event 

[223] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

that  fortune  favors  him  and  he  attains  high  station, 
he  finds  himself  surrounded  and  thwarted  by  men 
less  able  and  courageous,  who,  however  equal  to 
discovering  right  from  wrong,  yet  wear  the  party 
.collar,  owe  fealty  to  the  party  machine,  are  some- 
times actual  slaves  of  the  party  boss.  In  the  larger 
towns  we  hear  of  the  City  Hall  ring;  out  in  the 
counties  of  the  Court  House  ring.  We  rarely  any- 
where encounter  clean,  responsible  administration 
and  pure,  disinterested,  public  service. 

The  taxpayers  are  robbed  before  their  eyes.  The 
evil  grows  greater  as  we  near  the  centers  of  popula- 
tion. But  there  is  scarcely  a  village  or  hamlet 
where  graft  does  not  grow  like  weeds,  the  voters  as 
gullible  and  helpless  as  the  infatuated  victims  of 
bunko  tricks,  ingeniously  contrived  by  professional 
crooks  to  separate  the  fool  and  his  money.  Is  self- 
government  a  failure? 

None  of  us  would  allow  the  votaries  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings  to  tell  us  so,  albeit  we  are  ready 
enough  to  admit  the  imperfections  of  universal  suf- 
frage, too  often  committing  affairs  of  pith  and 
moment,  even  of  life  and  death,  to  the  arbitrament 
of  the  mob,  and  costing  more  in  cash  outlay  than 
royal  establishments. 
[224] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

The  quadrennial  period  in  American  politics, 
set  apart  and  dedicated  to  the  election  of  presidents, 
magnifies  these  evil  features  in  an  otherwise  ad- 
mirable system  of  government.  That  the  whipper- 
snappers  of  the  vicinage  should  indulge  their  pro- 
pensities comes  as  the  order  of  their  nature.  But 
the  party  leaders  are  not  far  behind  them.  Each  side 
construes  every  occurrence  as  an  argument  in  its 
favor,  assuring  it  certain  victory.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  latest  state  election  anywhere.  In  point 
of  fact,  it  foretold  nothing.  It  threw  no  light  upon 
coming  events,  not  even  upon  current  events.  It 
leaves  the  future  as  hazy  as  before.  Yet  the  man- 
agers of  either  party  affect  to  be  equally  confident 
that  it  presages  the  triumph  of  their  ticket  in  the 
next  national  election.  The  wonder  is  that  so  many 
of  the  voters  will  believe  and  be  influenced  by  such 
transparent  subterfuge. 

Is  there  any  remedy  for  all  this?  I  much  fear 
that  there  is  not.  Government,  like  all  else,  is  im- 
possible of  perfection.  It  is  as  man  is — good,  bad 
and  indifferent;  which  is  but  another  way  of  say- 
ing we  live  in  a  world  of  cross  purposes.  We  in 
America  prefer  republicanism.  But  would  despot- 
ism be  so  demurrable  under  a  wise  unselfish  despot? 

[225] 


"MARSE  HENRY' 


in 


Contemplating  the  contrasts  between  foreign  life 
and  foreign  history  with  our  own  one  cannot  help 
Reflecting  upon  the  yet  more  startling  contrasts  of 
ancient  and  modern  religion  and  government.  I 
have  wandered  not  a  little  over  Europe  at  irregular 
intervals  for  more  than  fifty  years.  Always  a  de- 
votee to  American  institutions,  I  have  been 
strengthened  in  my  beliefs  by  what  I  have  encoun- 
tered. 

The  mood  in  our  countrymen  has  been  overmuch 
to  belittle  things  American.  The  commercial  spirit 
in  the  United  States,  which  affects  to  be  national- 
istic, is  in  reality  cosmopolitan.  Money  being  its 
god,  French  money,  English  money,  anything  that 
calls  itself  money,  is  wealth  to  it.  It  has  no  time  to 
waste  on  theories  or  to  think  of  generics.  "Put 
money  in  thy  purse"  has  become  its  motto.  Money 
constitutes  the  reason  of  its  being.  The  organic  law 
of  the  land  is  Greek  to  it,  as  are  those  laws  of  God 
which  obstruct  it.  It  is  too  busy  with  its  greed  and 
gain  to  think,  or  to  feel,  on  any  abstract  subject. 
That  which  does  not  appeal  to  it  in  the  concrete  is 
of  no  interest  at  all. 
[226] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Just  as  in  the  days  of  Charles  V  and  Philip  II, 
all  things  yielded  to  the  theologian's  misconception 
of  the  spiritual  life  so  in  these  days  of  the  Billion- 
aires all  things  spiritual  and  abstract  yield  to  what 
they  call  the  progress  of  the  universe  and  the  lead- 
ing of  the  times.  Under  their  rule  we  have  had 
extraordinary  movement  just  as  under  the  lords  of 
the  Palatinate  and  the  Escurial — the  medieval 
union  of  the  devils  of  bigotry  and  power — Europe, 
which  was  but  another  name  for  Spain,  had  extraor- 
dinary movement.  We  know  where  it  ended  with 
Spain.  Whither  is  it  leading  us?  Are  we  travel- 
ing the  same  road? 

Let  us  hope  not.  Let  us  believe  not.  Yet,  once 
strolling  along  through  the  crypt  of  the  Church  of 
the  Escurial  near  Madrid,  I  could  not  repress  the 
idea  of  a  personal  and  physical  resemblance  be- 
tween the  effigies  in  marble  and  bronze  looking 
down  upon  me  whichever  way  I  turned,  to  some  of 
our  contemporary  public  men  and  seeming  to  say: 
"My  love  to  the  President  when  you  see  him  next," 
and  "Don't  forget  to  remember  me  kindly,  please, 
to  the  chairmen  of  both  your  national  committees !" 


[[227] 


'MARSE  HENRY" 


IV 


In  a  world  of  sin,  disease  and  death — death 
inevitable — what  may  man  do  to  drive  out  sin  and 
cure  disease,  to  the  end  that,  barring  accident,  old 
age  shall  set  the  limit  on  mortal  life? 

The  quack  doctor  equally  in  ethics  and  in  physics 
has  played  a  leading  part  in  human  affairs.  Only 
within  a  relatively  brief  period  has  science  made 
serious  progress  toward  discovery.  Though  Nature 
has  perhaps  an  antidote  for  all  her  posions  many  of 
them  continue  to  defy  approach.  They  lie  con- 
cealed, leaving  the  astutest  to  grope  in  the  dark. 

That  which  is  true  of  material  things  is  truer  yet 
of  spiritual  things.  The  ideal  about  which  we  hear 
so  much,  is  as  unattained  as  the  fabled  bag  of  gold 
at  the  end  of  the  rainbow.  Nor  is  the  doctrine  of 
perfectability  anywhere  one  with  itself.  It  speaks 
in  diverse  tongues.  Its  processes  and  objects  are 
variant.  It  seems  but  an  iridescent  dream  which 
lends  itself  equally  to  the  fancies  of  the  impracti- 
cable and  the  scheming  of  the  self-seeking,  breed- 
ing visionaries  and  pretenders. 

Easily  assumed  and  asserted,  too  often  it  be- 
comes tyrannous,  dealing  with  things  outer  and 
[228] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

visible  while  taking  little  if  any  account  of  the  inner 
lights  of  the  soul.  Thus  it  imposes  upon  credulity 
and  ignorance;  makes  fakers  of  some  and  fanatics 
of  others;  in  politics  where  not  an  engine  of  op- 
pression, a  corrupt  influence ;  in  religion  where  not 
a  zealot,  a  promoter  of  cant.  In  short  the  self- 
appointed  apostle  of  uplift,  who  disregarding  in- 
dividual character  would  make  virtue  a  matter  of 
statute  law  and  ordain  uniformity  of  conduct  by 
act  of  conventicle  or  assembly,  is  likelier  to  produce 
moral  chaos  than  to  reach  the  sublime  state  he 
claims  to  seek. 

The  bare  suggestion  is  full  of  startling  possi- 
bilities. Individualism  was  the  discovery  of  the 
fathers  of  the  American  Republic.  It  is  the  bed- 
rock of  our  political  philosophy.  Human  slavery 
was  assuredly  an  indefensible  institution.  But  the 
armed  enforcement  of  freedom  did  not  make  a 
black  man  a  white  man.  Nor  will  the  wave  of 
fanaticism  seeking  to  control  the  food  and  drink 
and  dress  of  the  people  make  men  better  men. 
Danger  lurks  and  is  bound  to  come  with  the 
inevitable  reaction. 

The  levity  of  the  men  is  recruited  by  the  folly  of 
the  women.    The  leaders  of  feminism  would  abolish 

[229] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

sex.  To  what  end?  The  pessimist  answers  what 
easier  than  the  demolition  of  a  sexless  world  gone 
entirely  mad?  How  simple  the  engineries  of  de- 
struction. Civil  war  in  America;  universal  hara- 
kiri  in  Europe ;  the  dry  rot  of  wealth  wasting  itself 
in  self-indulgence.  Then  a  thousand  years  of  total 
eclipse.  Finally  Macaulay's  Australian  surveying 
the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  from  a  broken 
parapet  of  London  Bridge,  and  a  Moslem  con- 
queror of  America  looking  from  the  hill  of  the 
Capitol  at  Washington  upon  the  desolation  of  what 
was  once  the  District  of  Columbia.  Shall  the  end 
be  an  Oriental  renaissance  with  the  philosophies  of 
Buddha,  Mohammed  and  Confucius  welded  into  a 
new  religion  describing  itself  as  the  last  word  of 
science,  reason  and  common  sense? 

Alas,  and  alack  the  day!  In  those  places  where 
the  suffering  rich  most  do  congregate  the  words  of 
Watts'  hymn  have  constant  application: 

For  Satan  finds  some  mischief  still 
For  idle  hands  to  do. 

When  they  have  not  gone  skylarking  or  grown 
tired  of  bridge  they  devote  their  leisure  to  organiz- 
ing clubs  other  than  those  of  the  uplift.     There 
[230] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

are  all  sorts,  from  the  Society  for  the  Abrogation 
of  Bathing  Suits  at  the  seaside  resorts  to  the 
League  at  Mewville  for  the  Care  of  Disabled  Cats. 
Most  of  these  clubs  are  all  officers  and  no  privates. 
That  is  what  many  of  them  are  got  up  for.  Do 
they  advance  the  world  in  grace?  One  who  sur- 
veys the  scene  can  scarcely  think  so. 

But  the  whirl  goes  on ;  the  yachts  sweep  proudly 
out  to  sea;  the  auto  cars  dash  madly  through  the 
streets;  more  and  darker  and  deeper  do  the  con- 
trasts of  life  show  themselves.  How  long  shall  it 
be  when  the  mudsill  millions  take  the  upper  ten 
thousand  by  the  throat  and  rend  them  as  the 
furiosos  of  the  Terror  in  France  did  the  aristocrats 
of  the  Regime  Ancien?  The  issue  between  capital 
and  labor,  for  example,  is  full  of  generating  heat 
and  hate.  Who  shall  say  that,  let  loose  in  the 
crowded  centers  of  population,  it  may  not  one  day 
engulf  us  all? 

Is  this  rank  pessimism  or  merely  the  vagaries 
of  an  old  man  dropping  back  into  second  child- 
hood, who  does  not  see  that  the  world  is  wiser  and 
better  than  ever  it  was,  mankind  and  womankind, 
surely  on  the  way  to  perfection? 

[231] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 


One  thing  is  certain :  We  are  not  standing  still. 
Since  ''Adam  delved  and  Eve  span" — if  they  ever 
did — in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  "somewhere  in  Asia," 
to  the  "goings  on"  in  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  di- 
rectly under  Pike's  Peak — the  earth  we  inhabit  has 
at  no  time  and  nowhere  wanted  for  liveliness — but 
surely  it  was  never  livelier  than  it  now  is;  as  the 
space-writer  says,  more  "dramatic";  indeed,  to 
quote  the  guidebooks,  quite  so  "picturesque  and 
interesting." 

Go  where  one  may,  on  land  or  sea,  he  will  come 
upon  activities  of  one  sort  and  another.  Were 
Timon  of  Athens  living,  he  might  be  awakened 
from  his  misanthrophy  and  Jacques,  the  forest 
cynic,  stirred  to  something  like  enthusiasm.  Is  the 
world  enduring  the  pangs  of  a  second  birth  which 
shall  recreate  all  things  anew,  supplementing  the 
miracles  of  modern  invention  with  a  corresponding 
development  of  spiritual  life ;  or  has  it  reached  the 
top  of  the  hill,  and,  mortal,  like  the  human  atoms 
that  compose  it,  is  it  starting  downward  on  the 
other  side  into  an  abyss  which  the  historians  of  the 
future  will  once  again  call  "the  dark  ages?" 
[232] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

We  know  not,  and  there  is  none  to  tell  us.  That 
which  is  actually  happening  were  unbelievable  if 
we  did  not  see  it,  from  hour  to  hour,  from  day  to 
day.  Horror  succeeding  horror  has  in  some  sort 
blunted  our  sensibilities.  Not  only  are  our  sym- 
pathies numbed  by  the  immensity  of  the  slaughter 
and  the  sorrow,  but  patriotism  itself  is  chilled  by  the 
selfish  thought  that,  having  thus  far  measurably  es- 
caped, we  may  pull  through  without  paying  our 
share.  This  will  account  for  a  certain  indifferent- 
ism  we  now  and  again  encounter. 

At  the  moment  we  are  felicitating  ourselves — or, 
is  it  merely  confusing  ourselves? — over  the  revolu- 
tion in  Russia.  It  seems  of  good  augury.  To  be- 
gin with,  for  Russia.  Then  the  murder  war  fairly 
won  for  the  Allies,  we  are  promised  by  the  optimists 
a  wise  and  lasting  peace. 

The  bells  that  rang  out  in  Petrograd  and  Mos- 
cow sounded,  we  are  told,  the  death  knell  of  autoc- 
racy in  Berlin  and  Vienna.  The  clarion  tones  that 
echoed  through  the  Crimea  and  Siberia,  albeit  to  the 
ear  of  the  masses  muffled  in  the  Schwarzwald  and 
along  the  shores  of  the  North  Sea,  and  up  and  down 
the  Danube  and  the  Rhine,  yet  conveyed  a  whis- 
pered message  which  may  presently  break  into 

[233] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

song;  the  glad  song  of  freedom  with  it  glorious  re- 
frain: "The  Romanoffs  gone!  Perdition  having 
reached  the  Hohenzollerns  and  the  Hapsburgs,  all 
will  be  well!" 

Anyhow,  freedom ;  self-government ;  for  whilst  a 
scrutinizing  and  solicitous  pessimism,  observing  and 
considering  many  abuses,  administrative  and 
political,  federal  and  local,  in  our  republican  system 
— abuses  which  being  very  visible  are  most  lamenta- 
ble— may  sometimes  move  us  to  lose  heart  of  hope 
in  democracy,  we  know  of  none  better.  So,  let  us 
stand  by  it ;  pray  for  it ;  fight  for  it.  Let  us  by  our 
example  show  the  Russians  how  to  attain  it.  Let 
us  by  the  same  token  show  the  Germans  how  to 
attain  it  when  they  come  to  see,  if  they  ever  do, 
the  havoc  autocracy  has  made  for  Germany.  That 
should  constitute  the  bed  rock  of  our  politics  and 
our  religion.  It  is  the  true  religion.  Love  of  coun- 
try is  love  of  God.    Patriotism  is  religion. 

It  is  also  Christianity.  The  pacifist,  let  me 
parenthetically  observe,  is  scarcely  a  Christian. 
There  be  technical  Christians  and  there  be  Chris- 
tians. The  technical  Christian  sees  nothing  but  the 
blurred  letter  of  the  law,  which  he  misconstrues.  The 
[234] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Christian,  animated  by  its  holy  spirit  and  led  by  its 
rightful  interpretation,  serves  the  Lord  alike  of 
heaven  and  hosts  when  he  flies  the  flag  of  his  coun- 
try and  smites  its  enemies  hip  and  thigh ! 


[235] 


CHAPTER  THE  ELEVENTH 

ANDREW   JOHNSON — THE   LIBERAL    CONVENTION    IN 
1872 — CARL  SCHURZ — THE  "QUADRILATERAL" — 
SAM  BOWLES,  HORACE  WHITE  AND  MTJRAT  HAL- 
STEAD — A  QUEER  COMPOSITE  OF  INCONGRUITIES 


AMONG  the  many  misconceptions  and  mis- 
chances that  befell  the  slavery  agitation  in 
the  United  States  and  finally  led  a  kindred  people 
into  actual  war  the  idea  that  got  afloat  after  this 
war  that  every  Confederate  was  a  Secessionist  best 
served  the  ends  of  the  radicalism  which  sought  to 
reduce  the  South  to  a  conquered  province,  and  as 
such  to  reconstruct  it  by  hostile  legislation  sup- 
ported wherever  needed  by  force. 

Andrew  Johnson  very  well  understood  that  a 
great  majority  of  the  men  who  were  arrayed  on 
the  Southern  side  had  taken  the  field  against  their 
better  judgment  through  pressure  of  circumstance. 
They  were  Union  men  who  had  opposed  secession 
[236] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  clung  to  the  old  order.  Not  merely  in  the  Bor- 
der States  did  this  class  rule  but  in  the  Gulf  States 
it  held  a  respectable  minority  until  the  shot  fired 
upon  Sumter  drew  the  call  for  troops  from  Lincoln. 
The  Secession  leaders,  who  had  staked  their  all 
upon  the  hazard,  knew  that  to  save  their  move- 
ment from  collapse  it  was  necessary  that  blood  be 
sprinkled  in  the  faces  of  the  people.  Hence  the 
message  from  Charleston: 

With  cannon,,  mortar  and  petard 
We  tender  you  our  Beauregard 


with  the  response  from  Washington  precipitating 
the  conflict  of  theories  into  a  combat  of  arms  for 
which  neither  party  was  prepared. 

The  debate  ended,  battle  at  hand,  Southern  men 
had  to  choose  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
between  their  convictions  and  predilections  on  one 
side  and  expatriation  on  the  other  side — resistance 
to  invasion,  not  secession,  the  issue.  Rut  four  years 
later,  when  in  1865  all  that  they  had  believed  and 
feared  in  1861  had  come  to  pass,  these  men  required 
no  drastic  measures  to  bring  them  to  terms.  Events 
more  potent  than  acts  of  Congress  had  already 
reconstructed  them.    Lincoln  with  a  forecast  of  this 

[237] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

had  shaped  his  ends  accordingly.  Johnson,  himself 
a  Southern  man,  understood  it  even  better  than 
Lincoln,  and  backed  by  the  legacy  of  Lincoln  he 
proceeded  not  very  skillfully  to  build  upon  it. 

The  assassination  of  Lincoln,  however,  had 
played  directly  into  the  hands  of  the  radicals,  led 
by  Ben  Wade  in  the  Senate  and  Thaddeus  Stevens 
in  the  House.  Prior  to  that  baleful  night  they  had 
fallen  behind  the  marching  van.  The  mad  act  of 
Booth  put  them  upon  their  feet  and  brought  them 
to  the  front.  They  were  implacable  men,  politi- 
cians equally  of  resolution  and  ability.  Events 
quickly  succeeding  favored  them  and  their  plans.  It 
was  not  alone  Johnson's  lack  of  temper  and  tact 
that  gave  them  the  whip  hand.  His  removal  from 
office  would  have  opened  the  door  of  the  White 
House  to  Wade,  so  that  strategically  Johnson's 
position  was  from  the  beginning  beleaguered  and 
came  perilously  near  before  the  close  to  being  unj 
tenable. 

Grant,  a  political  nondescript,  not  Wade,  the  un- 
compromising extremist,  came  after;  and  inevitably 
four  years  of  Grant  had  again  divided  the  triumph- 
ant Republicans.  This  was  the  situation  during 
the  winter  of  1871-72,  when  the  approaching  Presi- 
[238] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

dential  election  brought  the  country  face  to  face 
with  a  most  extraordinary  state  of  affairs.  The 
South  was  in  irons.  The  North  was  growing 
restive.  Thinking  people  everywhere  felt  that  con- 
ditions so  anomalous  to  our  institutions  could  not 
and  should  not  endure. 

ii 

Johnson  had  made  a  bungling  attempt  to  carry 
out  the  policies  of  Lincoln  and  had  gone  down  in 
the  strife.  The  Democratic  Party  had  reached  the 
ebb  tide  of  its  disastrous  fortunes. 

It  seemed  the  merest  reactionary.  A  group  of 
influential  Republicans,  dissatisfied  for  one  cause 
and  another  with  Grant,  held  a  caucus  and  issued 
a  call  for  what  they  described  as  a  Liberal  Republi- 
can Convention  to  assemble  in  Cincinnati  May  1, 
1872. 

A  Southern  man  and  a  Confederate  soldier,  a 
Democrat  by  conviction  and  inheritance,  I  had 
been  making  in  Kentucky  an  uphill  fight  for  the 
acceptance  of  the  inevitable.  The  line  of  cleavage 
between  the  old  and  the  new  South  I  had  placed 
upon  the  last  three  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, naming  them  the  Treaty  of  Peace  between 

[239] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  Sections.  The  negro  must  be  invested  with  the 
rights  conferred  upon  him  by  these  amendments, 
however  mistaken  and  injudicious  the  South  might 
think  them.  The  obsolete  Black  Laws  instituted 
during  the  slave  regime  must  be  removed  from  the 
statute  books.  The  negro,  like  Mohammed's  coffin, 
swung  in  midair.  He  was  neither  fish,  flesh  nor 
fowl,  nor  good  red  herring.  For  our  own  sake  we 
must  habilitate  him,  educate  and  elevate  him,  make 
him,  if  possible,  a  contented  and  useful  citizen. 
Failing  of  this,  free  government  itself  might  be  im- 
periled. 

I  had  behind  me  the  intelligence  of  the  Con- 
federate soldiers  almost  to  a  man.  They  at  least 
were  tired  of  futile  fighting,  and  to  them  the  war 
was  over.  But — and  especially  in  Kentucky — 
there  was  an  element  that  wanted  to  fight  when  it 
was  too  late;  old  Union  Democrats  and  Union 
Whigs  who  clung  to  the  hull  of  slavery  when  the 
kernel  was  gone,  and  proposed  to  win  in  politics 
what  had  been  lost  in  battle. 

The  leaders  of  this  belated  element  were  in  com- 
plete control  of  the  political  machinery  of  the  state. 
They  regarded  me  as  an  impudent  upstart — since 
I  had  come  to  Kentucky  from  Tennessee — as  little 
[240] 


From  a  Photograph  by  M.  B.  Brady 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN    1861 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

better  than  a  carpet-bagger;  and  had  done  their 
uttermost  to  put  me  down  and  drive  me  out. 

I  was  a  young  fellow  of  two  and  thirty,  of  bound- 
less optimism  and  my  full  share  of  self-confidence, 
no  end  of  physical  endurance  and  mental  vitality, 
having  some  political  as  well  as  newspaper  experi- 
ence.   It  never  crossed  my  fancy  that  I  could  fail. 

I  met  resistance  with  aggression,  answered  at- 
tempts at  bullying  with  scorn,  generally  irradiated 
by  laughter.  Yet  was  I  not  wholly  blind  to  conse- 
quences and  the  admonitions  of  prudence ;  and  when 
the  call  for  a  Liberal  Republican  Convention  ap- 
peared I  realized  that  if  I  expected  to  remain  a 
Democrat  in  a  Democratic  community,  and  to  in- 
fluence and  lead  a  Democratic  following,  I  must 
proceed  warily. 

Though  many  of  those  proposing  the  new  move- 
ment were  familiar  acquaintances — some  of  them 
personal  friends — the  scheme  was  in  the  air,  as  it 
were.  Its  three  newspaper  bellwethers — Samuel 
Bowles,  Horace  White  and  Murat  Halstead — were 
especially  well  known  to  me;  so  were  Horace 
Greeley,  Carl  Schurz  and  Charles  Sumner,  Stanley 
Matthews  being  my  kinsman,  George  Hoadley  and 
Cassius  M.  Clay  next-door  neighbors.     But  they 

[241] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

were  not  the  men  I  had  trained  with — not  my 
"crowd" — and  it  was  a  question  how  far  I  might  be 
able  to  reconcile  myself,  not  to  mention  my  political 
associates,  to  such  company,  even  conceding  that 
they  proceeded  under  good  fortune  with  a  good 
plan,  offering  the  South  extrication  from  its  woes 
and  the  Democratic  Party  an  entering  wedge  into 
a  solid  and  hitherto  irresistible  North. 

Nevertheless,  I  resolved  to  go  a  little  in  advance 
to  Cincinnati,  to  have  a  look  at  the  stalking  horse 
there  to  be  displayed,  free  to  take  it  or  leave  it  as  I 
liked,  my  bridges  and  lines  of  communication  quite 
open  and  intact. 

in 

"A  livelier  and  more  variegated  omnium-gatherum 
was  never  assembled.  They  had  already  begun  to 
straggle  in  when  I  arrived.  There  were  long-haired 
and  spectacled  doctrinaires  from  New  England, 
spliced  by  short-haired  and  stumpy  emissaries  from 
New  York — mostly  friends  of  Horace  Greeley,  as 
it  turned  out.  There  were  brisk  Westerners  from 
Chicago  and  St.  Louis.  If  Whitelaw  Reid,  who 
had  come  as  Greeley's  personal  representative,  had 
his  retinue,  so  had  Horace  White  and  Carl  Schurz. 
[242] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

There  were  a  few  rather  overdressed  persons  from 
New  Orleans  brought  up  by  Governor  Warmouth, 
and  a  motely  array  of  Southerners  of  every  sort, 
who  were  ready  to  clutch  at  any  straw  that  promised 
relief  to  intolerable  conditions.  The  full  contingent 
of  Washington  correspondents  was  there,  of  course, 
with  sharpened  eyes  and  pens  to  make  the  most 
of  what  they  had  already  begun  to  christen  a  con- 
clave of  cranks. 

Bowles  and  Halstead  met  me  at  the  station,  and 
we  drove  to  the  St.  Nicholas  Hotel,  where  Schurz 
and  White  were  awaiting  us.  Then  and  there  was 
organized  a  fellowship  which  in  the  succeeding 
campaign  cut  a  considerable  figure  and  went  by 
the  name  of  the  Quadrilateral.  We  resolved  to 
limit  the  Presidential  nominations  of  the  convention 
to  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Bowles'  candidate,  and 
Lyman  Trumbull,  White's  candidate,  omitting  al- 
together, because  of  specific  reasons  urged  by 
White,  the  candidacy  of  B.  Gratz  Brown,  who  be- 
cause of  his  Kentucky  connections  had  better  suited 
my  purpose. 

The  very  next  day  the  secret  was  abroad,  and 
Whitelaw  Reid  came  to  me  to  ask  why  in  a  news- 

[243] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

paper  combine  of  this  sort  the  New  York  Tribune 
had  been  left  out. 

To  my  mind  it  seemed  preposterous  that  it  had 
been  or  should  be,  and  I  stated  as  much  to  my  new 
colleagues.  They  offered  objection  which  to  me 
appeared  perverse  if  not  childish.  They  did  not 
like  Reid,  to  begin  with.  He  was  not  a  principal 
like  the  rest  of  us,  but  a  subordinate.  Greeley 
was  this,  that  and  the  other.  He  could  never  be 
relied  upon  in  any  coherent  practical  plan  of  cam- 
paign. To  talk  about  him  as  a  candidate  was 
ridiculous. 

I  listened  rather  impatiently  and  finally  I  said: 
"Now,  gentlemen,  in  this  movement  we  shall  need 
the  New  York  Tribune.  If  we  admit  Reid  we 
clinch  it.  You  will  all  agree  that  Greeley  has  no 
chance  of  a  nomination,  and  so  by  taking  him  in 
we  both  eat  our  cake  and  have  it." 

On  this  view  of  the  case  Reid  was  invited  to  join 
us,  and  that  very  night  he  sat  with  us  at  the  St. 
Nicholas,  where  from  night  to  night  until  the  end 
we  convened  and  went  over  the  performances  and 
developments  of  the  day  and  concerted  plans  for 
the  morrow. 
[244] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

As  I  recall  these  symposiums  some  amusing  and 
some  plaintive  memories  rise  before  me. 

The  first  serious  business  that  engaged  us  was  the 
killing  of  the  boom  for  Judge  David  Davis,  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  which  was  assuming  definite  and 
formidable  proportions.  The  preceding  winter  it 
had  been  incubating  at  Washington  under  the 
ministration  of  some  of  the  most  astute  politicians 
of  the  time,  mainly,  however,  Democratic  members 
of  Congress. 

A  party  of  these  had  brought  it  to  Cincinnati, 
opening  headquarters  well  provided  with  the 
requisite  commissaries.  Every  delegate  who  came 
in  that  could  be  reached  was  laid  hold  of  and  con- 
ducted to  Davis'  headquarters. 

We  considered  it  flat  burglary.  It  was  a  gross 
infringement  upon  our  copyrights.  What  business 
had  the  professional  politicians  with  a  great  reform 
movement?  The  influence  and  dignity  of  journal- 
ism were  at  stake.  The  press  was  imperilled.  We, 
its  custodians,  could  brook  no  such  deflection,  not 
to  say  defiance,  from  intermeddling  office  seekers, 
especially  from  broken-down  Democratic  office 
seekers. 

The  inner  sanctuary  of  our  proceedings  was  a 

[245] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

common  drawing-room  between  two  bedchambers, 
occupied  by  Schurz  and  myself.  Here  we  repaired 
after  supper  to  smoke  the  pipe  of  fraternity  and 
reform,  and  to  save  the  country.  What  might  be 
done  to  kill  off  "D.  Davis,"  as  we  irreverently  called 
the  eminent  and  learned  jurist,  the  friend  of  Lin- 
coln and  the  only  aspirant  having  a  "bar'l"?  That 
was  the  question.  We  addressed  ourselves  to  the 
task  with  earnest  purpose,  but  characteristically. 
The  power  of  the  press  must  be  invoked.  It  was 
our  chief  if  not  our  only  weapon.  Seated  at  the 
same  table  each  of  us  indited  a  leading  editorial  for 
his  paper,  to  be  wired  to  its  destination  and  printed 
next  morning,  striking  D.  Davis  at  a  prearranged 
and  varying  angle.  Copies  of  these  were  made  for 
Halstead,  who  having  with  the  rest  of  us  read  and 
compared  the  different  scrolls  indited  one  of  his 
own  in  general  commentation  and  review  for  Cin- 
cinnati consumption.  In  next  day's  Commercial, 
blazing  under  vivid  headlines,  these  leading  edito- 
rials, dated  "Chicago"  and  "New  York,"  "Spring- 
field, Mass.,"  and  "Louisville,  Ky.,"  appeared  with 
the  explaining  line  "The  Tribune  of  to-morrow 

morning  will  say "    "The  Courier-Journal" — 

[246] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  the  Republican — will  say  to-morrow  morn- 
ing " 

Wondrous  consensus  of  public  opinion!  The 
Davis  boom  went  down  before  it.  The  Davis  boom- 
ers were  paralyzed.  The  earth  seemed  to  have 
risen  and  hit  them  midships.  The  incoming  dele- 
gates were  arrested  and  forewarned.  Six  months 
of  adroit  scheming  was  set  at  naught,  and  little 
more  was  heard  of  "D.  Davis." 

We  were,  like  the  Mousquetaires,  equally  in  for 
fighting  and  foot-racing,  the  point  with  us  being  to 
get  there,  no  matter  how;  the  end — the  defeat  of 
the  rascally  machine  politicians  and  the  reform  of 
the  public  service — justifying  the  means.  I  am 
writing  this  nearly  fifty  years  after  the  event  and 
must  be  forgiven  the  fling  of  my  wisdom  at  my  own 
expense  and  that  of  my  associates  in  harmless 
crime. 

Some  ten  years  ago  I  wrote:  "Reid  and  White 
and  I  the  sole  survivors ;  Reid  a  great  Ambassador, 
White  and  I  the  virtuous  ones,  still  able  to  sit  up 
and  take  notice,  with  three  meals  a  day  for  which 
we  are  thankful  and  able  to  pay;  no  one  of  us 
recalcitrant.  We  were  wholly  serious — maybe  a 
trifle  visionary,  but  as  upright  and  patriotic  in  our 

[247] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

intentions  and  as  loyal  to  our  engagements  as  it 
was  possible  for  older  and  maybe  better  men  to  be. 
For  my  part  I  must  say  that  if  I  have  never  any- 
thing on  my  conscience  worse  than  the  massacre  of 
that  not  very  edifying  yet  promising  combine  I 
shall  be  troubled  by  no  remorse,  but  to  the  end  shall 
sleep  soundly  and  well." 

Alas,  I  am  not  the  sole  survivor.  In  this  con- 
nection an  amusing  incident  throwing  some  light 
upon  the  period  thrusts  itself  upon  my  memory. 
The  Quadrilateral,  including  Reid,  had  just  fin- 
ished its  consolidation  of  public  opinion  before  re- 
lated, when  the  cards  of  Judge  Craddock,  chair- 
man of  the  Kentucky  Democratic  Committee,  and 
of  Col.  Stoddard  Johnston,  editor  of  the  Frank- 
fort Yeoman,  the  organ  of  the  Kentucky  Democ- 
racy, were  brought  from  below.  They  had  come 
to  look  after  me — that  was  evident.  By  no  chance 
could  they  find  me  in  more  equivocal  company. 
In  addition  to  ourselves — bad  enough,  from  the 
Kentucky  point  of  view — Theodore  Tilton,  Donn 
Piatt  and  David  A.  Wells  were  in  the  room. 

When  the  Kentuckians  crossed  the  threshold  and 
were  presented  seriatim  the  face  of  each  was  a 
study.  Even  a  proper  and  immediate  applica- 
[248] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

tion  of  whisky  and  water  did  not  suffice  to  restore 
their  lost  equilibrium  and  bring  them  to  their  usual 
state  of  convivial  self-possession.  Colonel  John- 
ston told  me  years  after  that  when  they  went  away 
they  walked  in  silence  a  block  or  two,  when  the  old 
judge,  a  model  of  the  learned  and  sedate  school  of 
Kentucky  politicians  and  jurists,  turned  to  him  and 
said:  "It  is  no  use,  Stoddart,  we  cannot  keep  up 
with  that  young  man  or  with  these  times.  'Lord, 
now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace!' " 

IV 

The  Jupiter  Tonans  of  reform  in  attendance 
upon  the  convention  was  Col.  Alexander  K.  Mc- 
Clure.  He  was  one  of  the  handsomest  and  most 
imposing  of  men;  Halstead  himself  scarcely  more 
so.  McClure  was  personally  unknown  to  the 
Quadrilateral.  But  this  did  not  stand  in  the  way 
of  our  asking  him  to  dine  with  us  as  soon  as  his 
claims  to  fellowship  in  the  good  cause  of  reform  be- 
gan to  make  themselves  apparent  through  the  need 
of  bringing  the  Pennsylvania  delegation  to  a 
realizing  sense. 

He  looked  like  a  god  as  he  entered  the  room; 
nay,  he  acted  like  one.     Schurz  first  took  him  in 

[249] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

hand.  With  a  lofty  courtesy  I  have  never  seen 
equalled  he  tossed  his  inquisitor  into  the  air.  Hal- 
stead  came  next,  and  tried  him  upon  another  tack. 
He  fared  no  better  than  Schurz.  And  hurrying  to 
the  rescue  of  my  friends,  McClure,  looking  now  a 
bit  bored  and  resentful,  landed  me  somewhere  near 
the  ceiling. 

It  would  have  been  laughable  if  it  had  not  been 
ignominious.  I  took  my  discomfiture  with  the  bad 
grace  of  silence  throughout  the  stiff,  formal  and 
brief  meal  which  was  then  announced.  But  when 
it  was  over  and  the  party,  risen  from  table,  was 
about  to  disperse  I  collected  my  energies  and  re- 
sources for  a  final  stroke.  I  was  not  willing  to  re- 
main so  crushed  nor  to  confess  myself  so  beaten, 
though  I  could  not  disguise  from  myself  a  feeling 
that  all  of  us  had  been  overmatched. 

"McClure,"  said  I  with  the  cool  and  quiet  resolu- 
tion of  despair,  drawing  him  aside,  "what  in  the 
do  you  want  anyhow?" 

He  looked  at  me  with  swift  intelligence  and  a 
sudden  show  of  sympathy,  and  then  over  at  the 
others  with  a  withering  glance. 

"What?    With  those  cranks?    Nothing." 

Jupiter  descended  to  earth.     I  am  afraid  we 
[250] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

actually  took  a  glass  of  wine  together.  Anyhow, 
from  that  moment  to  the  hour  of  his  death  we  were 
the  best  of  friends. 

Without  the  inner  circle  of  the  Quadrilateral, 
which  had  taken  matters  into  their  own  hands,  were 
a  number  of  persons,  some  of  them  disinterested  and 
others  simple  curiosity  and  excitement  seekers,  who 
might  be  described  as  merely  lookers-on  in  Vienna. 
The  Sunday  afternoon  before  the  convention  was 
to  meet  we,  the  self -elect,  fell  in  with  a  party  of 
these  in  a  garden  "over  the  Rhine,"  as  the  German 
quarter  of  Cincinnati  is  called.  There  was  first 
general  and  rather  aimless  talk.  Then  came  a  great 
deal  of  speech  making.  Schurz  started  it  with  a 
few  pungent  observations  intended  to  suggest  and 
inspire  some  common  ground  of  opinion  and  sen- 
timent. Nobody  was  inclined  to  dispute  his  lead- 
ership, but  everybody  was  prone  to  assert  his  own. 
It  turned  out  that  each  regarded  himself  and 
wished  to  be  regarded  as  a  man  with  a  mission,  hav- 
ing a  clear  idea  how  things  were  not  to  be  done. 
There  were  Civil  Service  Reform  Protectionists 
and  Civil  Service  Reform  Free  Traders.  There 
were  a  few  politicians,  who  were  discovered  to  be 

[251] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

spoilsmen,  the  unforgivable  sin,  and  quickly  dis- 
missed as  such. 

Coherence  was  the  missing  ingredient.  Not  a 
man  jack  of  them  was  willing  to  commit  or  bind 
himself  to  anything.  Edward  Atkinson  pulled  one 
way  and  William  Dorsheimer  exactly  the  opposite 
way.  David  A.  Wells  sought  to  get  the  two  to- 
gether; it  was  not  possible.  Sam  Bowles  shook  his 
head  in  diplomatic  warning.  Horace  White  threw 
in  a  chunk  or  so  of  a  rather  agitating  newspaper  in- 
dependency, and  Halstead  was  in  an  inflamed  state 
of  jocosity  to  the  more  serious-minded. 

It  was  nuts  to  the  Washington  Correspondents 
> — story  writers  and  satirists  who  were  there  to  make 
the  most  out  of  an  occasion  in  which  the  bizarre  was 
much  in  excess  of  the  conventional — with  George 
Alfred  Townsend  and  Donn  Piatt  to  set  the  pace. 
Hyde  had  come  from  St.  Louis  to  keep  especial 
tab  on  Grosvenor.  Though  rival  editors  facing  our 
way,  they  had  not  been  admitted  to  the  Quad- 
rilateral. McCullagh  and  Nixon  arrived  with  the 
earliest  from  Chicago.  The  lesser  lights  of  the 
guild  were  innumerable.  One  might  have  mistaken 
it  for  an  annual  meeting  of  the  Associated  Press. 

[252] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 


v 


The  convention  assembled.  It  was  in  Cincinnati's 
great  Music  Hall.  Schurz  presided.  Who  that 
was  there  will  ever  forget  his  opening  words: 
"This  is  moving  day."  He  was  just  turned  forty- 
two  ;  in  his  physiognomy  a  scholarly  Herr  Doktor; 
in  his  trim  lithe  figure  a  graceful  athlete;  in  the 
tones  of  his  voice  an  orator. 

Even  the  bespectacled  doctrinaires  of  the  East, 
whence,  since  the  days  when  the  Star  of  Bethlehem 
shone  over  the  desert,  wisdom  and  wise  men  have 
had  their  emanation,  were  moved  to  something  like 
enthusiasm.  The  rest  of  us  were  fervid  and  aglow. 
Two  days  and  a  night  and  a  half  the  Quadri- 
lateral had  the  world  in  a  sling  and  things  its  own 
way.  It  had  been  agreed,  as  I  have  said,  to  limit 
the  field  to  Adams,  Trumbull  and  Greeley ;  Greeley 
being  out  of  it,  as  having  no  chance,  still  further 
abridged  it  to  Adams  and  Trumbull;  and,  Trum- 
bull not  developing  very  strong,  Bowles,  Halstead 
and  I,  even  White,  began  to  be  sure  of  Adams  on 
the  first  ballot;  Adams  the  indifferent,  who  had 
sailed  away  for  Europe,  observing  that  he  was  not 

[253] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

a  candidate  for  the  nomination  and  otherwise  inti- 
mating his  disdain  of  us  and  it. 

Matters  thus  apparently  cocked  and  primed,  the 
convention  adjourned  over  the  first  night  of  its 
session  with  everybody  happy  except  the  D.  Davis 
contingent,  which  lingered  on  the  scene,  but  knew 
its  "cake  was  dough."  If  we  had  forced  a  vote 
that  night,  as  we  might  have  done,  we  should  have 
nominated  Adams.  But  inspired  by  the  bravery 
of  youth  and  inexperience  we  let  the  golden  oppor- 
tunity slip.  The  throng  of  delegates  and  the  audi- 
ence dispersed. 

In  those  days,  it  being  the  business  of  my  life  to 
turn  day  into  night  and  night  into  day,  it  was  not 
my  habit  to  seek  my  bed  much  before  the  presses 
began  to  thunder  below,  and  this  night  proving  no 
exception,  and  being  tempted  by  a  party  of  Ken- 
tuckians,  who  had  come,  some  to  back  me  and  some 
to  watch  me,  I  did  not  quit  their  agreeable  society 
until  the  "wee  short  hours  ayont  the  twal."  Be- 
fore turning  in  I  glanced  at  the  early  edition  of 
the  Commercial,  to  see  that  something — I  was  too 
tired  to  decipher  precisely  what — had  happened.  It 
was,  in  point  of  fact,  the  arrival  about  midnight  of 
[254] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Gen.  Frank  P.  Blair  and  Governor  B.  Gratz 
Brown. 

I  had  in  my  possession  documents  that  would 
have  induced  at  least  one  of  them  to  pause  before 
making  himself  too  conspicuous.  The  Quadri- 
lateral, excepting  Reid,  knew  this.  We  had  sepa- 
rated upon  the  adjournment  of  the  convention.  I 
being  across  the  river  in  Covington,  their  search 
was  unavailing.  I  was  not  to  be  found.  They  were 
in  despair.  When  having  had  a  few  hours  of  rest  I 
reached  the  convention  hall  toward  noon  it  was  too 
late. 

I  got  into  the  thick  of  it  in  time  to  see  the  close, 
not  without  an  angry  collision  with  that  one  of  the 
newly  arrived  actors  whose  coming  had  changed 
the  course  of  events,  with  whom  I  had  lifelong  rela- 
tions of  affectionate  intimacy.  Sailing  but  the 
other  day  through  Mediterranean  waters  with 
Joseph  Pulitzer,  who,  then  a  mere  youth,  was  yet 
the  secretary  of  the  convention,  he  recalled  the 
scene;  the  unexpected  and  not  overattractive  ap- 
pearance of  the  governor  of  Missouri ;  his  not  very 
pleasing  yet  ingenious  speech;  the  stoical,  almost 
lethargic  indifference  of  Schurz. 

"Carl  Schurz,"  said  Pulitzer,  "was  the  most  in- 

[255] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

dustrious  and  the  least  energetic  man  I  have  ever 
worked  with.  A  word  from  him  at  that  crisis  would 
have  completely  routed  Blair  and  squelched  Brown. 
It  was  simply  not  in  him  to  speak  it." 

Greeley  was  nominated  amid  a  whirl  of  en- 
thusiasm, his  workers,  with  Whitelaw  Reid  at  their 
head,  having  maintained  an  admirable  and  effective 
organization  and  being  thoroughly  prepared  to  take 
advantage  of  the  opportune  moment.  It  was  the 
logic  of  the  event  that  B.  Gratz  Brown  should  be 
placed  on  the  ticket  with  him. 

The  Quadrilateral  was  nowhere.  It  was  done 
for.  The  impossible  had  come  to  pass.  There  rose 
thereafter  a  friendly  issue  of  veracity  between 
Schurz  and  myself,  which  illustrates  our  state  of 
mind.  My  version  is  that  we  left  the  convention 
hall  together  with  an  immaterial  train  of  after  in- 
cidents, his  that  we  had  not  met  after  the  adjourn- 
ment— he  quite  sure  of  this  because  he  had  looked 
for  me  in  vain. 

"Schurz  was  right,"  said  Joseph  Pulitzer  upon 
the  occasion  of  our  yachting  cruise  just  mentioned, 
"I  know,  for  he  and  I  went  directly  from  the  hall 

with  Judge  Stallo  to  his  home  on  Walnut  Hills, 
where  we  dined  and  passed  the  afternoon." 
[256] 


From  a  Photograph  by  M.  B.  Brady 


MRS.    LINCOLN   IX    1861 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

The  Quadrilateral  had  been  knocked  into  a 
cocked  hat.  Whitelaw  Reid  was  the  only  one  of  us 
who  clearly  understood  the  situation  and  thorough- 
ly knew  what  he  was  about.  He  came  to  me  and 
said:  "I  have  won,  and  you  people  have  lost.  I 
shall  expect  that  you  stand  by  the  agreement  and 
meet  me  as  my  guests  at  dinner  to-night.  But  if 
you  do  not  personally  look  after  this  the  others  will 
not  be  there." 

I  was  as  badly  hurt  as  any,  but  a  bond  is  a  bond 
and  I  did  as  he  desired,  succeeding  partly  by  coax- 
ing and  partly  by  insisting,  though  it  was  devious 
work. 

Frostier  conviviality  I  have  never  sat  down  to 
than  Reid's  dinner.  Horace  White  looked  more 
than  ever  like  an  iceberg,  Sam  Bowles  was  diplo- 
matic but  ineffusive,  Schurz  was  as  a  death's  head 
at  the  board ;  Halstead  and  I  through  sheer  bravado 
tried  to  enliven  the  feast.  But  they  would  none 
of  us,  nor  it,  and  we  separated  early  and  sadly,  re- 
formers hoist  by  their  own  petard. 

VI 

The  reception  by  the  country  of  the  nomination 
of  Horace  Greeley  was  as  inexplicable  to  the  poli- 

[257] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ticians  as  the  nomination  itself  had  been  un- 
expected by  the  Quadrilateral.  The  people  rose  to 
it.  The  sentimental,  the  fantastic  and  the  para- 
doxical in  human  nature  had  to  do  with  this.  At 
the  South  an  ebullition  of  pleased  surprise  grew  into 
positive  enthusiasm.  Peace  was  the  need  if  not  the 
longing  of  the  Southern  heart,  and  Greeley's  had 
been  the  first  hand  stretched  out  to  the  South  from 
the  enemy's  camp — very  bravely,  too,  for  he  had 
signed  the  bail  bond  of  Jefferson  Davis — and  quick 
upon  the  news  flashed  the  response  from  generous 
men  eager  for  the  chance  to  pay  something  upon  a 
recognized  debt  of  gratitude. 

Except  for  this  spontaneous  uprising,  which 
continued  unabated  in  July,  the  Democratic  Party 
could  not  have  been  induced  at  Baltimore  to  ratify 
the  proceedings  at  Cincinnati  and  formally  to  make 
Greeley  its  candidate.  The  leaders  dared  not  resist 
it.  Some  of  them  halted,  a  few  held  out,  but  by 
midsummer  the  great  body  of  them  came  to  the 
front  to  head  the  procession. 

He  was  a  queer  old  man ;  a  very  medlejr  of  con- 
tradictions ;  shrewd  and  simple ;  credulous  and  pene- 
trating; a  master  penman  of  the  school  of  Swift  and 
Cobbett;  even  in  his  odd  picturesque  personality 
[258] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

whimsically  attractive;  a  man  to  be  reckoned  with 
where  he  chose  to  put  his  powers  forth,  as  Seward 
learned  to  his  cost. 

What  he  would  have  done  with  the  Presidency 
had  he  reached  it  is  not  easy  to  say  or  surmise.  He 
was  altogether  unsuited  for  official  life,  for  which 
nevertheless  he  had  a  passion.  But  he  was  not  so 
readily  deceived  in  men  or  misled  in  measures  as  he 
seemed  and  as  most  people  thought  him. 
-  His  convictions  were  emotional,  his  philosophy 
was  experimental;  but  there  was  a  certain  method 
in  their  application  to  public  affairs.  He  gave 
bountifully  of  his  affection  and  his  confidence  to 
the  few  who  enjoyed  his  familiar  friendship — ac- 
cessible and  sympathetic  though  not  indiscriminat- 
ing  to  those  who  appealed  to  his  impressionable, 
sensibilities  and  sought  his  help.  He  had  been  a 
good  party  man  and  was  by  nature  and  tempera- 
ment a  partisan. 

To  him  place  was  not  a  badge  of  servitude ;  it  was 
a  decoration — preferment,  promotion,  popular 
recognition.  He  had  always  yearned  for  office  as 
the  legitimate  destination  of  public  life  and  the 
honorable  award  of  party  service.  During  the 
greater  part  of  his  career  the  conditions  of  jour- 

[259] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

nalism  had  been  rather  squalid  and  servile.  He 
was  really  great  as  a  journalist.  He  was  truly  and 
highly  fit  for  nothing  else,  but  seeing  less  deserving 
and  less  capable  men  about  him  advanced  from  one 
post  of  distinction  to  another  he  wondered  why  his 
turn  proved  so  tardy  in  coming,  and  when  it  would 
come.  It  did  come  with  a  rush.  What  more  natural 
than  that  he  should  believe  it  real  instead  of  the 
empty  pageant  of  a  vision? 

It  had  taken  me  but  a  day  and  a  night  to  pull 
myself  together  after  the  first  shock  and  surprise 
and  to  plunge  into  the  swim  to  help  fetch  the  water- 
logged factions  ashore.  This  was  clearly  indis- 
pensable to  forcing  the  Democratic  organization  to 
come  to  the  rescue  of  what  would  have  been  other- 
wise but  a  derelict  upon  a  stormy  sea.  Schurz  was 
deeply  disgruntled.  Before  he  could  be  appeased 
a  bridge,  found  in  what  was  called  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Hotel  Conference,  had  to  be  constructed  in  order  to 
carry  him  across  the  stream  which  flowed  between 
his  disappointed  hopes  and  aims  and  what  appeared 
to  him  an  illogical  and  repulsive  alternative.  He 
had  taken  to  his  tent  and  sulked  like  another 
Achilles.  He  was  harder  to  deal  with  than  any  of 
[260] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  Democratic  file  leaders,  but  he  finally  yielded 
and  did  splendid  work  in  the  campaign. 

His  was  a  stubborn  spirit  not  readily  adjustable. 
He  was  a  nobly  gifted  man,  but  from  first  to  last  an 
alien  in  an  alien  land.  He  once  said  to  me,  "If  I 
should  live  a  thousand  years  they  would  still  call 
me  a  Dutchman."  No  man  of  his  time  spoke  so 
well  or  wrote  to  better  purpose.  He  was  equally 
skillful  in  debate,  an  overmatch  for  Conkling  and 
Morton,  whom — especially  in  the  French  arms  mat- 
ter— he  completely  dominated  and  outshone.  As 
sincere  and  unselfish,  as  patriotic  and  as  courageous 
as  any  of  his  contemporaries,  he  could  never  attain 
the  full  measure  of  the  popular  heart  and  confi- 
dence, albeit  reaching  its  understanding  directly 
and  surely ;  within  himself  a  man  of  sentiment  who 
was  not  the  cause  of  sentiment  in  others.  He  knew 
this  and  felt  it. 

The  Nast  cartoons,  which  as  to  Greeley  and 
Sumner  were  unsparing  in  the  last  degree,  whilst 
treating  Schurz  with  a  kind  of  considerate  qualify- 
ing humor,  nevertheless  greatly  offended  him.  I 
do  not  think  Greeley  minded  them  much  if  at  all. 
They  were  very  effective;  notably  the  "Pirate 
Ship,"  which  represented  Greeley  leaning  over  the 

[261] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

taffrail  of  a  vessel  carrying  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
and  waving  his  handkerchief  at  the  man-of-war 
Uncle  Sam  in  the  distance,  the  political  leaders  of 
the  Confederacy  dressed  in  true  corsair  costume 
crouched  below  ready  to  spring,  Nothing  did  more 
to  sectionalize  Northern  opinion  and  fire  the  North- 
ern heart,  and  to  lash  the  fury  of  the  rank  and  file 
of  those  who  were  urged  to  vote  as  they  had  shot 
and  who  had  hoisted  above  them  the  Bloody  Shirt 
for  a  banner.  The  first  half  of  the  canvass  the 
bulge  was  with  Greeley;  the  second  half  began  in 
eclipse,  to  end  in  something  very  like  collapse. 

The  old  man  seized  his  flag  and  set  out  upon  his 
own  account  for  a  tour  of  the  country.  Right  well 
he  bore  himself.  If  speech-making  ever  does  any 
good  toward  the  shaping  of  results  Greeley's 
speeches  surely  should  have  elected  him.  They  were 
marvels  of  impromptu  oratory,  mostly  homely  and 
touching  appeals  to  the  better  sense  and  the 
magnanimity  of  a  people  not  ripe  or  ready  for  gen- 
erous impressions;  convincing  in  their  simplicity 
and  integrity;  unanswerable  from  any  standpoint 
of  sagacious  statesmanship  or  true  patriotism  if  the 
North  had  been  in  any  mood  to  listen  and  to  reason. 

I  met  him  at  Cincinnati  and  acted  as  his  escort  to 
[262] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Louisville  and  thence  to  Indianapolis,  where  others 
were  waiting  to  take  him  in  charge.  He  was  in  a 
state  of  querulous  excitement.  Before  the  vast  and 
noisy  audiences  which  we  faced  he  stood  apparently- 
pleased  and  composed,  delivering  his  words  as  he 
might  have  dictated  them  to  a  stenographer.  As 
soon  as  we  were  alone  he  would  break  out  into  a 
kind  of  lamentation,  punctuated  by  occasional 
bursts  of  objurgation.  He  especially  distrusted  the 
Quadrilateral,  making  an  exception  in  my  case,  as 
well  he  might,  because  however  his  nomination  had 
jarred  my  judgment  I  had  a  real  affection  for  him, 
dating  back  to  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
war  when  I  was  wont  to  encounter  him  in  the  re- 
porters' galleries  at  Washington,  which  he  pre- 
ferred to  using  his  floor  privilege  as  an  ex-member 
of  Congress. 

It  was  mid-October.  We  had  heard  from  Maine ; 
Indiana  and  Ohio  had  voted.  He  was  for  the  first 
time  realizing  the  hopeless  nature  of  the  contest. 
The  South  in  irons  and  under  military  rule  and 
martial  law  sure  for  Grant,  there  had  never  been 
any  real  chance.  Now  it  was  obvious  that  there 
was  to  be  no  compensating  ground  swell  at  the 
North.    That  he  should  pour  forth  his  chagrin  to 

[263] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

one  whom  he  knew  so  well  and  even  regarded  as 
one  of  his  boys  was  inevitable.  Much  of  what  he 
said  was  founded  on  a  basis  of  fact,  some  of  it  was 
mere  suspicion  and  surmise,  all  of  it  came  back  to 
the  main  point  that  defeat  stared  us  in  the  face. 
I  was  glad  and  yet  loath  to  part  with  him.  If  ever 
a  man  needed  a  strong  friendly  hand  and  heart  to 
lean  upon  he  did  during  those  dark  days — the  end 
in  darkest  night  nearer  than  anyone  could  divine. 
He  showed  stronger  mettle  than  had  been  allowed 
him;  bore  a  manlier  part  than  was  commonly  as- 
cribed to  the  slovenly  slipshod  habiliments  and  the 
aspects  in  which  benignancy  and  vacillation  seemed 
to  struggle  for  the  ascendancy.  Abroad  the  ele- 
ments conspired  against  him.  At  home  his  wife 
lay  ill,  as  it  proved,  unto  death.  The  good  gray 
head  he  still  carried  like  a  hero,  but  the  worn  and 
tender  heart  was  beginning  to  break.  Overwhelm- 
ing defeat  was  followed  by  overwhelming  affliction. 
He  never  quitted  his  dear  one's  beside  until  the 
last  pulsebeat,  and  then  he  sank  beneath  the  load 
of  grief. 

"The  Tribune  is  gone  and  I  am  gone,"  he  said, 
and  spoke  no  more. 

The  death  of  Greeley  fell  upon  the  country  with 
[264] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

a  sudden  shock.  It  roused  a  universal  sense  of  pity 
and  sorrow  and  awe.  All  hearts  were  hushed.  In 
an  instant  the  bitterness  of  the  campaign  was  for- 
gotten, though  the  huzzas  of  the  victors  still  rent 
the  air.  The  President,  his  late  antagonist,  with  his 
cabinet  and  the  leading  members  of  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress,  attended  his  funeral.  As  he  lay  in  his 
coffin  he  was  no  longer  the  arch  rebel,  leading  a  com- 
bine of  buccaneers  and  insurgents,  which  the  Re- 
publican orators  and  newspapers  had  depicted 
him,  but  the  brave  old  apostle  of  freedom  who  had 
done  more  than  all  others  to  make  the  issues  upon 
which  a  militant  and  triumphant  party  had  risen 
to  power. 

The  multitude  remembered  only  the  old  white 
hat  and  the  sweet  old  baby  face  beneath  it,  heart 
of  gold,  and  hand  wielding  the  wizard  pen;  the  in- 
carnation of  probity  and  kindness,  of  steadfast  de- 
votion to  his  duty  as  he  saw  it,  and  to  the  needs  of 
the  whole  human  family.  A  tragedy  in  truth  it  was ; 
and  yet  as  his  body  was  lowered  into  its  grave  there 
rose  above  it,  invisible,  unnoted,  a  flower  of  match- 
less beauty — the  flower  of  peace  and  love  between 
the  sections  of  the  Union  to  which  his  life  had  been 
a  sacrifice. 

[265] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

The  crank  convention  had  builded  wiser  than  it 
knew.  That  the  Democratic  Party  could  ever  have 
been  brought  to  the  support  of  Horace  Greeley  for 
President  of  the  United  States  reads  even  now  like 
a  page  out  of  a  nonsense  book.  That  his  warmest 
support  should  have  come  from  the  South  seems 
incredible  and  was  a  priceless  fact.  His  martyrdom 
shortened  the  distance  across  the  bloody  chasm ;  his 
coffin  very  nearly  filled  it.  The  candidacy  of 
Charles  Francis  Adams  or  of  Lyman  Trumbull 
meant  a  mathematical  formula,  with  no  solution  of 
the  problem  and  as  certain  defeat  at  the  end  of  it. 
His  candidacy  threw  a  flood  of  light  and  warmth 
into  the  arena  of  deadly  strife ;  it  made  a  more  equal 
and  reasonable  division  of  parties  possible;  it  put 
the  Southern  half  of  the  country  in  a  position  to 
plead  its  own  case  by  showing  the  Northern  half 
that  it  was  not  wholly  recalcitrant  or  reactionary; 
and  it  made  way  for  real  issues  of  pith  and  moment 
relating  to  the  time  instead  of  pigments  of  bellicose 
passion  and  scraps  of  ante-bellum  controversy. 

In  a  word  Greeley  did  more  by  his  death  to  com- 
plete the  work  of  Lincoln  than  he  could  have  done 
by  a  triumph  at  the  polls  and  the  term  in  the  White 
House  he  so  much  desired.  Though  but  sixty-one 
[266] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

years  of  age,  his  race  was  run.  Of  him  it  may  be 
truly  written  that  he  lived  a  life  full  of  inspiration 
to  his  countrymen  and  died  not  in  vain,  "our  later 
Franklin"  fittingly  inscribed  upon  his  tomb. 


[267] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWELFTH 

THE  IDEAL  IN  PUBLIC  LIFE — POLITICIANS.,  STATES- 
MEN AND  PHILOSOPHERS THE  DISPUTED  PRESI- 
DENCY    IN      1876-7 — THE     PERSONALITY     AND 

CHARACTER  OF  MR.  TILDEN HIS  ELECTION  AND 

EXCLUSION  BY  A  PARTISAN  TRIBUNAL 


THE  soul  of  journalism  is  disinterestedness. 
But  neither  as  a  principle  nor  an  asset  had 
this  been  generally  discovered  fifty  years  ago.  Most 
of  my  younger  life  I  was  accused  of  ulterior  motives 
of  political  ambition,  whereas  I  had  seen  too  much 
of  preferment  not  to  abhor  it.  To  me,  as  to  my 
father,  office  has  seemed  ever  a  badge  of  servitude. 
For  a  long  time,  indeed,  I  nursed  the  delusions  of 
the  ideal.  The  love  of  the  ideal  has  not  in  my  old 
age  quite  deserted  me.  But  I  have  seen  the  claim 
of  it  so  much  abused  that  when  a  public  man  calls 
it  for  a  witness  I  begin  to  suspect  his  sincerity. 
A  virile  old  friend  of  mine — who  lived  in  Texas, 
[268] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

though  he  went  there  from  Rhode  Island — used  to 
declare  with  sententious  emphasis  that  war  is  the 
state  of  man.  "Sir,"  he  was  wont  to  observe,  ad- 
dressing me  as  if  I  were  personally  accountable, 
"you  are  emasculating  the  human  species.  You 
are  changing  men  into  women  and  women  into  men. 
You  are  teaching  everybody  to  read,  nobody  to 
think;  and  do  you  know  where  you  will  end,  sir? 
Extermination,  sir — extermination!  On  the  north 
side  of  the  North  Pole  there  is  another  world 
peopled  by  giants;  ten  thousand  millions  at  the 
very  least ;  every  giant  of  them  a  hundred  feet  high. 
Now  about  the  time  you  have  reduced  your  uni- 
verse to  complete  effeminacy  some  fool  with  a  pick- 
axe will  break  through  the  thin  partition — the  mere 
ice  curtain — separating  these  giants  from  us,  and 
then  they  will  sweep  through  and  swoop  down  and 
swallow  you,  sir,  and  the  likes  of  you,  with  your 
topsy-turvy  civilization,  your  boasted  literature  and 
science  and  art!" 

This  old  friend  of  mine  had  a  sure  recipe  for  suc- 
cess in  public  life.  "Whenever  you  get  up  to  make 
a  speech,"  said  he,  "begin  by  proclaiming  yourself 
the  purest,  the  most  disinterested  of  living  men,  and 
end  by  intimating  that  you  are  the  bravest;"  and 

[269] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

then  with  the  charming  inconsistency  of  the  dreamer 
he  would  add:  "If  there  be  anything  on  this  earth 
that  I  despise  it  is  bluster." 

Decidedly  he  was  not  a  disciple  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson.  Yet  he,  too,  in  his  way  was  an  idealist, 
and  for  all  his  oddity  a  man  of  intellectual  integrity, 
a  trifle  exaggerated  perhaps  in  its  methods  and 
illustrations,  but  true  to  his  convictions  of  right 
and  duty,  as  Emerson  would  have  had  him  be.  For 
was  it  not  Emerson  who  exclaimed,  "We  will  walk 
on  our  own  feet ;  we  will  work  with  our  own  hands ; 
we  will  speak  our  own  minds  ?" 

ii 

In  spite  of  our  good  Woodrow  and  our  lamented 
Theodore  I  have  quite  made  up  my  mind  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  the  ideal  in  public  life,  constru- 
ing public  life  to  refer  to  political  transactions. 
The  ideal  may  exist  in  art  and  letters,  and  some- 
times very  young  men  imagine  that  it  exists  in  very 
young  women.  But  here  we  must  draw  the  line. 
As  society  is  constituted  the  ideal  has  no  place,  not 
even  standing  room,  in  the  arena  of  civics. 

If  we  would  make  a  place  for  it  we  must  begin 
by  realizing  this.  The  painter,  like  the  lover,  is  a 
[270] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

law  unto  himself,  with  his  little  picture— the  poet, 
also,  with  his  little  rhyme— his  atelier  his  universe, 
his  attic  his  field  of  battle,  his  weapons  the  uten- 
sils of  his  craft— he  himself  his  own  Providence. 
It  is  not  so  in  the  world  of  action,  where  the  condi- 
tions are  directly  reversed;  where  the  one  player 
contends'against  many  players,  seen  and  unseen; 
where  each  move  is  met  by  some  counter-move; 
where  the  finest  touches  are  often  unnoted  of  men  or 
rudely  blotted  out  by  a  mysterious  hand  stretched 
forth  from  the  darkness. 

"I  wish  I  could  be  as  sure  of  anything,"  said 
Melbourne,  "as  Tom  Macaulay  is  of  everything." 
Melbourne  was  a  man  of  affairs,  Macaulay  a  man 
of  books;  and  so  throughout  the  story  the  men  of 
action  have  been  fatalists,  from  Cassar  to  Napoleon 
and  Bismarck,  nothing  certain  except  the  invisible 
player  behind  the  screen. 

Of  all  human  contrivances  the  most  imperfect  is 
government.  In  spite  of  the  essays  of  Bentham 
and  Mill  the  science  of  government  has  yet  to  be 
discovered.  The  ideal  statesman  can  only  exist  in 
the  ideal  state,  which  has  never  existed. 

The  politician,  like  the  poor,  we  have  always  with 
us.     As  long  as  men  delegate  to  other  men  the 

[271] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

function  of  acting  for  them,  of  thinking  for  them, 
we  shall  continue  to  have  him. 

He  is  a  variable  quantity.  In  the  crowded  cen- 
ters his  distinguishing  marks  are  short  hair  and 
cunning;  upon  the  frontier,  sentiment  and  the  six- 
shooter  !  In  New  York  he  becomes  a  boss ;  in  Ken- 
tucky and  Texas,  a  fighter  and  an  orator.  But 
the  statesman — the  ideal  statesman — in  the  mind's 
eye,  Horatio!  Bound  by  practical  limitations  such 
an  anomaly  would  be  a  statesman  minus  a  party,  a 
statesman  who  never  gets  any  votes  or  anywhere 
— a  statesman  perpetually  out  of  a  job.  We  have 
had  some  imitation  ideal  statesmen  who  have  been 
more  or  less  successful  in  palming  off  their  pinch- 
beck wares  for  the  real ;  but  looking  backward  over 
the  history  of  the  country  we  shall  find  the  greatest 
among  our  public  men — measuring  greatness  by 
real  and  useful  service — to  have  been  while  they 
lived  least  regarded  as  idealists;  for  they  were 
men  of  flesh  and  blood,  who  amid  the  rush  of 
events  and  the  calls  to  duty  could  not  stop  to  paint 
pictures,  to  consider  sensibilities,  to  put  forth  the 
deft  hand  where  life  and  death  hung  upon  the 
stroke  of  a  bludgeon  or  the  swinging  of  a  club. 

Washington  was  not  an  ideal  statesman,  nor 
[272] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Hamilton,  nor  Jefferson,  nor  Lincoln,  though  each 
of  them  conceived  grandly  and  executed  nobly. 
They  loved  truth  for  truth's  sake,  even  as  they 
loved  their  country.  Yet  no  one  of  them  ever  quite 
attained  his  conception  of  it. 

Truth  indeed  is  ideal.  But  when  we  come  to 
adapt  and  apply  it,  how  many  faces  it  shows  us, 
what  varying  aspects,  so  that  he  is  fortunate  who 
is  able  to  catch  and  hold  a  single  fleeting  expres- 
sion. To  bridle  this  and  saddle  it,  and,  as  we  say 
in  Kentucky,  to  ride  it  a  turn  or  two  around  the 
paddock  or,  still  better,  down  the  home-stretch  of 
things  accomplished,  is  another  matter.  The  real 
statesman  must  often  do  as  he  can,  not  as  he  would ; 
the  ideal  statesman  existing  only  in  the  credulity 
of  those  simple  souls  who  are  captivated  by  appear- 
ances or  deceived  by  professions. 

The  nearest  approach  to  the  ideal  statesman  I 
have  known  was  most  grossly  stigmatized  while  he 
lived.  I  have  Mr.  Tilden  in  mind.  If  ever  man 
pursued  an  ideal  life  he  did.  From  youth  to  age 
he  dwelt  amid  his  fancies.  He  was  truly  a  man  of 
the  world  among  men  of  letters  and  a  man  of  let- 
ters among  men  of  the  world.  A  philosopher  pure 
and  simple — a  lover  of  books,  of  pictures,  of  all 

[273] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

things  beautiful  and  elevating — he  yet  attained 
great  riches,  and  being  a  doctrinaire  and  having  a 
passion  for  affairs  he  was  able  to  gratify  the  as- 
pirations to  eminence  and  the  yearning  to  be  of 
service  to  the  State  which  had  rilled  his  heart. 

He  seemed  a  medley  of  contradiction.  Without 
the  artifices  usual  to  the  practical  politician  he  grad- 
ually rose  to  be  a  power  in  his  party ;  thence  to  be- 
come the  leader  of  a  vast  following,  his  name  a 
shibboleth  to  millions  of  his  countrymen,  who  en- 
thusiastically supported  him  and  who  believed  that 
he  was  elected  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  United 
States.  He  was  an  idealist;  he  lost  the  White 
House  because  he  was  so,  though  represented  while 
he  lived  by  his  enemies  as  a  scheming  spider  weav- 
ing his  web  amid  the  coil  of  mystification  in  which 
he  hid  himself.  For  he  was  personally  known  to 
few  in  the  city  where  he  had  made  his  abode;  a 
great  lawyer  and  jurist  who  rarely  appeared  in 
court ;  a  great  political  leader  to  whom  the  hustings 
were  mainly  a  stranger;  a  thinker,  and  yet  a 
dreamer,  who  lived  his  own  life  a  little  apart,  as  a 
poet  might;  uncorrupting  and  incorruptible;  least 
of  all  were  his  political  companions  moved  by  the 
loss  of  the  presidency,  which  had  seemed  in  his 

[274] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

grasp.  And  finally  he  died — though  a  master  of 
legal  lore — to  have  his  last  will  and  testament  suc- 
cessfully assailed. 

Except  as  news  venders  the  newspapers — espe- 
cially newspaper  workers — should  give  politics  a 
wide  berth.  Certainly  they  should  have  no  party 
politics.  True  to  say,  journalism  and  literature 
and  politics  are  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles.  From 
Bolingbroke,  the  most  splendid  of  the  world's  fail- 
ures, to  Thackeray,  one  of  its  greatest  masters  of 
letters — who  happily  did  not  get  the  chance  he 
sought  in  parliamentary  life  to  fall — both  English 
history  and  American  history  are  full  of  illustra- 
tions to  this  effect.  Except  in  the  comic  opera  of 
French  politics  the  poet,  the  artist,  invested  with 
power,  seems  to  lose  his  efficiency  in  the  ratio  of  his 
genius ;  the  literary  gift,  instead  of  aiding,  actually 
antagonizing  the  aptitude  for  public  business. 

The  statesman  may  not  be  fastidious.  The  poet, 
the  artist,  must  be  always  so.  If  the  party  leader 
preserve  his  integrity — if  he  keep  himself  disinter- 
ested and  clean — if  his  public  influence  be  inspiring 
to  his  countrymen  and  his  private  influence  ob- 
structive of  cheats  and  rogues  among  his  adherents 
— he  will  have  done  well. 

[275] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

We  have  left  behind  us  the  gibbet  and  the  stake. 
No  further  need  of  the  Voltaires,  the  Rousseaus  and 
the  Diderots  to  declaim  against  kingcraft  and 
priestcraft.  We  have  done  something  more  than 
mark  time.  We  report  progress.  Yet  despite  the 
miracles  of  modern  invention  how  far  in  the  arts  of 
government  has  the  world  traveled  from  darkness 
to  light  since  the  old  tribal  days,  and  what  has  it 
learned  except  to  enlarge  the  area,  to  amplify  and 
augment  the  agencies,  to  multiply  and  complicate 
the  forms  and  processes  of  corruption?  By  cor- 
ruption I  mean  the  dishonest  advantage  of  the  few 
over  the  many. 

The  dreams  of  yesterday,  we  are  told,  become  the 
realities  of  to-morrow.  In  these  despites  I  am  an 
optimist.  Much  truly  there  needs  still  to  be  learned, 
much  to  be  unlearned.  Advanced  as  we  consider 
ourselves  we  are  yet  a  long  way  from  the  most  rudi- 
mentary perception  of  the  civilization  we  are  so  fond 
of  parading.  The  eternal  verities — where  shall  we 
seek  them?  Little  in  religious  affairs,  less  still  in 
commercial  affairs,  hardly  any  at  all  in  political  af- 
fairs, that  being  right  which  represents  each  organ- 
ism. Still  we  progress.  The  pulpit  begins  to  turn 
from  the  sinister  visage  of  theology  and  to  teach 
[276] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  simple  lessons  of  Christ  and  Him  crucified.  The 
press,  which  used  to  be  omniscient,  is  now  only  in- 
discriminate— a  clear  gain,  emitting  by  force  of 
publicity,  if  not  of  shine,  a  kind  of  light  through 
whose  diverse  rays  and  foggy  luster  we  may  now 
and  then  get  a  glimpse  of  truth. 

in 

The  time  is  coming,  if  it  has  not  already  arrived, 
when  among  fair-minded  and  intelligent  Americans 
there  will  not  be  two  opinions  touching  the  Hayes- 
Tilden  contest  for  the  presidency  in  1876-77 — that 
both  by  the  popular  vote  and  a  fair  count  of  the 
electoral  vote  Tilden  was  elcted  and  Hayes  was  de- 
feated; but  the  whole  truth  underlying  the  deter- 
minate incidents  which  led  to  the  rejection  of  Til- 
den and  the  seating  of  Hayes  will  never  be  known. 

"All  history  is  a  lie,"  observed  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole,  the  corruptionist,  mindful  of  what  was  likely 
to  be  written  about  himself;  and  "What  is  history," 
asked  Napoleon,  the  conqueror,  "but  a  fable  agreed 
upon?" 

In  the  first  administration  of  Mr.  Cleveland 
there  were  present  at  a  dinner  table  in  Washing- 
ton, the  President  being  of  the  party,  two  leading 

[277] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Democrats  and  two  leading  Republicans  who  had 
sustained  confidential  relations  to  the  principals 
and  played  important  parts  in  the  drama  of  the 
Disputed  Succession.  These  latter  had  been  long 
upon  terms  of  personal  intimacy.  The  occasion  was 
informal  and  joyous,  the  good  fellowship  of  the 
heartiest. 

Inevitably  the  conversation  drifted  to  the  Elec- 
toral Commission,  which  had  counted  Tilden  out 
and  Hayes  in,  and  of  which  each  of  the  four  had 
some  story  to  tell.  Beginning  in  banter  with  in- 
terchanges of  badinage  it  presently  fell  into  remi- 
niscence, deepening  as  the  interest  of  the  listeners 
rose  to  what  under  different  conditions  might  have 
been  described  as  unguarded  gayety  if  not  impru- 
dent garrulity.    The  little  audience  was  rapt. 

Finally  Mr.  Cleveland  raised  both  hands  and  ex- 
claimed, "What  would  the  people  of  this  country 
think  if  the  roof  could  be  lifted  from  this  house  and 
they  could  hear  these  men?"  And  then  one  of  the 
four,  a  gentleman  noted  for  his  wealth  both  of 
money  and  humor,  replied,  "But  the  roof  is  not 
going  to  be  lifted  from  this  house,  and  if  any  one 
repeats  what  I  have  said  I  will  denounce  him  as  a 
liar." 

[278] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Once  in  a  while  the  world  is  startled  by  some 
revelation  of  the  unknown  which  alters  the  estimate 
of  a  historic  event  or  figure;  but  it  is  measurably 
true,  as  Metternich  declares,  that  those  who  make 
history  rarely  have  time  to  write  it. 

It  is  not  my  wish  in  recurring  to  the  events  of 
nearly  flve-and-forty  years  ago  to  invoke  and 
awaken  any  of  the  passions  of  that  time,  nor  my 
purpose  to  assail  the  character  or  motives  of  any 
of  the  leading  actors.  Most  of  them,  including  the 
principals,  I  knew  well;  to  many  of  their  secrets 
I  was  privy.  As  I  was  serving,  in  a  sense,  as  Mr. 
Tilden's  personal  representative  in  the  Lower1; 
House  of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  and  as  a 
member  of  the  joint  Democratic  Advisory  or  Steer- 
ing Committee  of  the  two  Houses,  all  that  passed 
came  more  or  less,  if  not  under  my  supervision,  yet 
to  my  knowledge;  and  long  ago  I  resolved  that 
certain  matters  should  remain  a  sealed  book  in  my 
memory. 

I  make  no  issue  of  veracity  with  the  living;  the 
dead  should  be  sacred.  The  contradictory  prompt- 
ings, not  always  crooked;  the  double  constructions 
possible  to  men's  actions ;  the  intermingling  of  am- 
bition and  patriotism  beneath  the  lash  of  party 

[279] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

spirit;  often  wrong  unconscious  of  itself;  some- 
times equivocation  deceiving  itself — in  short,  the 
tangled  web  of  good  and  ill  inseparable  from  great 
affairs  of  loss  and  gain  made  debatable  ground  for 
every  step  of  the  Hayes-Tilden  proceeding. 

I  shall  bear  sure  testimony  to  the  integrity  of 
Mr.  Tilden.  I  directly  know  that  the  presidency 
was  offered  to  him  for  a  price,  and  that  he  refused 
it;  and  I  indirectly  know  and  believe  that  two 
other  offers  came  to  him,  which  also  he  declined. 
The  accusation  that  he  was  willing  to  buy,  and 
through  the  cipher  dispatches  and  other  ways  tried 
to  buy,  rests  upon  appearance  supporting  mistaken 
surmise.  Mr.  Tilden  knew  nothing  of  the  cipher 
dispatches  until  they  appeared  in  the  New  York 
Tribune.  Neither  did  Mr.  George  W.  Smith,  his 
private  secretary,  and  later  one  of  the  trustees  of 
his  will. 

It  should  be  sufficient  to  say  that  so  far  as  they 
involved  No.  15  Gramercy  Park  they  were  the  work 
solely  of  Colonel  Pelton,  acting  on  his  own  respon- 
sibility, and  as  Mr.  Tilden's  nephew  exceeding  his 
authority  to  act;  that  it  later  developed  that  dur- 
ing this  period  Colonel  Pelton  had  not  been  in  his 
perfect  mind,  but  was  at  least  semi-irresponsible; 
[280] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  that  on  two  ocasions  when  the  vote  or  votes 
sought  seemed  within  reach  Mr.  Tilden  interposed 
to  forbid.  Directly  and  personally  I  know  this  to 
be  true. 

The  price,  at  least  in  patronage,  which  the  Re- 
publicans actually  paid  for  possession  is  of  public 
record.  Yet  I  not  only  do  not  question  the  integ- 
rity of  Mr.  Hayes,  but  I  believe  him  and  most  of 
those  immediately  about  him  to  have  been  high- 
minded  men  who  thought  they  were  doing  for  the 
best  in  a  situation  unparalleled  and  beset  with  per- 
plexity. What  they  did  tends  to  show  that  men 
will  do  for  party  and  in  concert  what  the  same  men 
never  would  be  willing  to  do  each  on  his  own  re- 
sponsibility. In  his  "Life  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden," 
John  Bigelow  says: 

"Why  persons  occupying  the  most  exalted  posi- 
tions should  have  ventured  to  compromise  their 
reputations  by  this  deliberate  consummation  of  a 
series  of  crimes  which  struck  at  the  very  founda- 
tions of  the  republic  is  a  question  which  still  puzzles 
many  of  all  parties  who  have  no  charity  for  the 
crimes  themselves.  I  have  already  referred  to  the 
terrors  and  desperation  with  which  the  prospect  of 
Tilden's  election  inspired  the  great  army  of  office- 

[281] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

holders  at  the  close  of  Grant's  administration.  That 
army,  numerous  and  formidable  as  it  was,  was  com- 
paratively limited.  There  was  a  much  larger  and 
justly  influential  class  who  were  apprehensive  that 
the  return  of  the  Democratic  party  to  power  threat- 
ened a  reactionary  policy  at  Washington,  to  the  un- 
doing of  some  or  all  the  important  results  of  the 
war.  These  apprehensions  were  inflamed  by  the 
party  press  until  they  were  confined  to  no  class, 
but  more  or  less  pervaded  all  the  Northern  States. 
The  Electoral  Tribunal,  consisting  mainly  of  men 
appointed  to  their  positions  by  Republican  Presi- 
dents or  elected  from  strong  Republican  States,  felt 
the  pressure  of  this  feeling,  and  from  motives  com- 
pounded in  more  or  less  varying  proportions  of 
dread  of  the  Democrats,  personal  ambition,  zeal  for 
their  party  and  respect  for  their  constituents, 
reached  the  conclusion  that  the  exclusion  of  Tilden 
from  the  White  House  was  an  end  which  justified 
whatever  means  were  necessary  to  accomplish  it. 
They  regarded  it,  like  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves,  as  a  war  measure." 

rv 
The  nomination  of  Horace  Greeley  in  1872  and 
the  overwhelming  defeat  that  followed  left  the 
[282] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Democratic  party  in  an  abyss  of  despair.  The  old 
Whig  party,  after  the  disaster  that  overtook  it  in 
1852,  had  been  not  more  demoralized.  Yet  in  the 
general  elections  of  1874  the  Democrats  swept  the 
country,  carrying  many  Northern  States  and  send- 
ing a  great  majority  to  the  Forty-fourth  Congress. 

Reconstruction  was  breaking  down  of  its  very 
weight  and  rottenness.  The  panic  of  1873  reacted 
against  the  party  in  power.  Dissatisfaction  with 
Grant,  which  had  not  sufficed  two  years  before  to 
displace  him,  was  growing  apace.  Favoritism  bred 
corruption  and  corruption  grew  more  and  more 
flagrant.  Succeeding  scandals  cast  their  shadows 
before.  Chickens  of  carpetbaggery  let  loose  upon 
the  South  were  coming  home  to  roost  at  the  North. 
There  appeared  everywhere  a  noticeable  subsidence 
of  the  sectional  spirit.  Reform  was  needed  alike  in 
the  State  Governments  and  the  National  Govern- 
ment, and  the  cry  for  reform  proved  something 
other  than  an  idle  word.  All  things  made  for 
Democracy. 

Yet  there  were  many  and  serious  handicaps.  The 
light  and  leading  of  the  historic  Democratic  party 
which  had  issued  from  the  South  were  in  obscurity 
and  abeyance,  while  most  of  those  surviving  who 

[283] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

had  been  distinguished  in  the  party  conduct  and 
counsels  were  disabled  by  act  of  Congress.  Of  the 
few  prominent  Democrats  left  at  the  North  many 
were  tainted  by  what  was  called  Copperheadism — 
sympathy  with  the  Confederacy.  To  find  a  chief- 
tain wholly  free  from  this  contamination,  Democ- 
racy, having  failed  of  success  in  presidential  cam- 
paigns, not  only  with  Greeley  but  with  McClellan 
and  Seymour,  was  turning  to  such  Republicans  as 
Chase,  Field  and  Davis.  At  last  heaven  seemed  to 
smile  from  the  clouds  upon  the  disordered  ranks 
and  to  summon  thence  a  man  meeting  the  require- 
ments of  the  time.    This  was  Samuel  Jones  Tilden. 

To  his  familiars  Mr.  Tilden  was  a  dear  old 
bachelor  who  lived  in  a  fine  old  mansion  in  Gra- 
mercy  Park.  Though  60  years  old  he  seemed  in  the 
prime  of  his  manhood;  a  genial  and  overflowing 
scholar ;  a  trained  and  earnest  doctrinaire ;  a  public- 
spirited,  patriotic  citizen,  well  known  and  highly 
esteemed,  who  had  made  fame  and  fortune  at  the 
bar  and  had  always  been  interested  in  public  af- 
fairs. He  was  a  dreamer  with  a  genius  for  busi- 
ness, a  philosopher  yet  an  organizer.  He  pursued 
the  tenor  of  his  life  with  measured  tread. 

His  domestic  fabric  was  disfigured  by  none  of  the 
[284] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

isolation  and  squalor  which  so  often  attend  the  con- 
firmed celibate.  His  home  life  was  a  model  of 
order  and  decorum,  his  home  as  unchallenged  as  a 
bishopric,  its  hospitality,  though  select,  profuse  and 
untiring.  An  elder  sister  presided  at  his  board,  as 
simple,  kindly  and  unostentatious,  but  as  method- 
ical as  himself.  He  was  a  lover  of  books  rather 
than  music  and  art,  but  also  of  horses  and  dogs  and 
out-of-door  activity. 

He  was  fond  of  young  people,  particularly  of 
young  girls;  he  drew  them  about  him,  and  was  a 
veritable  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  in  his  gallantries 
toward  them  and  his  zeal  in  amusing  them  and  mak- 
ing them  happy.  His  tastes  were  frugal  and  their 
indulgence  was  sparing.  He  took  his  wine  not 
plenteously,  though  he  enjoyed  it  —  especially  his 
"blue  seal"  while  it  lasted — and  sipped  his  whisky- 
and-water  on  occasion  with  a  pleased  composure 
redolent  of  discursive  talk,  of  which,  when  he  cared 
to  lead  the  conversation,  he  was  a  master.  He  had 
early  come  into  a  great  legal  practice  and  held  a 
commanding  professional  position.  His  judgment 
was  believed  to  be  infallible;  and  it  is  certain  that 
after  1871  he  rarely  appeared  in  the  courts  of  law 

[285] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

except  as  counsellor,  settling  in  chambers  most  of 
the  cases  that  came  to  him. 

It  was  such  a  man  whom,  in  1874,  the  Democrats 
nominated  for  Governor  of  New  York.  To  say 
truth,  it  was  not  thought  by  those  making  the 
nomination  that  he  had  any  chance  to  win.  He 
was  himself  so  much  better  advised  that  months 
ahead  he  prefigured  very  near  the  exact  vote.  The 
afternoon  of  the  day  of  election  one  of  the  group 
of  friends,  who  even  thus  early  had  the  Presidency 
in  mind,  found  him  in  his  library  confident  and 
calm. 

"What  majority  will  you  have?"  he  asked 
cheerily. 

"Any,"  replied  the  friend  sententiously. 

"How  about  fifteen  thousand?" 

"Quite  enough." 

"Twenty-five  thousand?" 

"Still  better." 

"The  majority,"  he  said,  "will  be  a  little  in  ex- 
cess of  fifty  thousand." 

It  was  53,315.    His  estimate  was  not  guesswork. 

He  had  organized  his  campaign  by  school  districts. 

His  canvass  system  was  perfect,  his  canvassers  were 

as  penetrating  and  careful  as  census  takers.    He 

[286] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

had  before  him  reports  from  every  voting  precinct 
in  the  State.  They  were  corroborated  by  the  offi- 
cial returns.  He  had  defeated  Gen.  John  A.  Dix, 
thought  to  be  invincible  by  a  majority  very  nearly 
the  same  as  that  by  which  Governor  Dix  had  been 
elected  two  years  before. 

The  time  and  the  man  had  met.  Though  Mr. 
Tilden  had  not  before  held  executive  office  he  was 
ripe  and  ready  for  the  work.  His  experience  in 
the  pursuit  and  overthrow  of  the  Tweed  Ring  in 
New  York,  the  great  metropolis,  had  prepared  and 
fitted  him  to  deal  with  the  Canal  Ring  at  Albany, 
the  State  capital.  Administrative  reform  was  now 
uppermost  in  the  public  mind,  and  here  in  the  Em- 
pire State  of  the  Union  had  come  to  the  head  of 
affairs  a  Chief  Magistrate  at  once  exact  and  exact- 
ing, deeply  versed  not  only  in  legal  lore  but  in  a 
knowledge  of  the  methods  by  which  political  power 
was  being  turned  to  private  profit  and  of  the  men — 
Democrats  as  well  as  Republicans — who  were  prey- 
ing upon  the  substance  of  the  people. 

The  story  of  the  two  years  that  followed  relates 

[287] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  investigations  that  investigated,  to  prosecutions 
that  convicted,  to  the  overhauling  of  popular  cen- 
sorship, to  reduced  estimates  and  lower  taxes. 

The  campaign  for  the  Presidential  nomination 
began  as  early  as  the  autumn  of  1875.  The  South- 
ern end  of  it  was  easy  enough.  A  committee  of 
Southerners  residing  in  New  York  was  formed. 
Never  a  leading  Southern  man  came  to  town  who 
was  not  "seen."  If  of  enough  importance  he  was 
taken  to  No.  15  Gramercy  Park.  Mr.  Tilden  meas- 
ured to  the  Southern  standard  of  the  gentleman  in 
politics.  He  impressed  the  disfranchised  South- 
ern leaders  as  a  statesman  of  the  old  order  and  al- 
together after  their  own  ideas  of  what  a  President 
ought  to  be. 

The  South  came  to  St.  Louis,  the  seat  of  the 
National  Convention,  represented  by  its  foremost 
citizens,  and  almost  a  unit  for  the  Governor  of  New 
York.  The  main  opposition  sprang  from  Tam- 
many Hall,  of  which  John  Kelly  was  then  the  chief. 
Its  very  extravagance  proved  an  advantage  to  Til- 
den. 

Two  days  before  the  meeting  of  the  convention 
I  sent  this  message  to  Mr.  Tilden:  "Tell  Black- 
[288] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

stone" — his  favorite  riding  horse — "that  he  wins  in 
a  walk." 

The  anti-Tilden  men  put  up  the  Hon.  S.  S. — 
"Sunset" — Cox  for  temporary  chairman.  It  was 
a  clever  move.  Mr.  Cox,  though  sure  for  Tam- 
many, was  popular  everywhere  and  especially  at 
the  South.  His  backers  thought  that  with  him  they 
could  count  a  majority  of  the  National  Committee. 

The  night  before  the  assembling  Mr.  Tilden's  two 
or  three  leading  friends  on  the  committee  came  to 
me  and  said:  "We  can  elect  you  chairman  over 
Cox,  but  no  one  else." 

I  demurred  at  once.  "I  don't  know  one  rule  of 
parliamentary  law  from  another,"  I  said. 

"We  will  have  the  best  parliamentarian  on  the 
continent  right  by  you  all  the  time,"  they  said. 

"I  can't  see  to  recognize  a  man  on  the  floor  of 
the  convention,"  I  said. 

"We'll  have  a  dozen  men  at  hand  to  tell  you," 
they  replied.  So  it  was  arranged,  and  thus  at  the 
last  moment  I  was  chosen. 

I  had  barely  time  to  write  the  required  keynote 
speech,  but  not  enough  to  commit  it  to  memory; 
nor  sight  to  read  it,  even  had  I  been  willing  to 
adopt  that  mode  of  delivery.    It  would  not  do  to 

[289] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

trust  to  extemporization.  A  friend,  Col.  J.  Stod- 
dard Johnston,  who  was  familiar  with  my  penman- 
ship, came  to  the  rescue.  Concealing  my  manu- 
script behind  his  hat  he  lined  the  words  out  to  me 
between  the  cheering,  I  having  mastered  a  few 
opening  sentences. 

Luck  was  with  me.  It  went  with  a  bang — not, 
however,  wholly  without  detection.  The  Indianans, 
devoted  to  Hendricks,  were  very  wroth. 

"See  that  fat  man  behind  the  hat  telling  him 
what  to  say,"  said  one  to  his  neighbor,  who  an- 
swered, "Yes,  and  wrote  it  for  him,  too,  I'll  be 
bound !" 

One  might  as  well  attempt  to  drive  six  horses  by 
proxy  as  preside  over  a  national  convention  by 
hearsay.  I  lost  my  parliamentarian  at  once.  I  just 
made  my  parliamentary  law  as  we  went.  Never 
before  or  since  did  any  deliberate  body  proceed  un- 
der manual  so  startling  and  original.  But  I  de- 
livered each  ruling  with  a  resonance — it  were  bet- 
ter called  an  impudence — which  had  an  air  of  au- 
thority. There  was  a  good  deal  of  quiet  laughter 
on  the  floor  among  the  knowing  ones,  though  I 
knew  the  mass  was  as  ignorant  as  I  was  myself; 
but  realizing  that  I  meant  to  be  just  and  was  ex- 
[290] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

pediting  business  the  convention  soon  warmed  to 
me,  and  feeling  this  I  began  to  be  perfectly  at 
home.  I  never  had  a  better  day's  sport  in  all  my 
life. 

One  incident  was  particularly  amusing.  Much 
against  my  will  and  over  my  protest  I  was  brought 
to  promise  that  Miss  Phoebe  Couzins,  who  bore  a 
Woman's  Rights  Memorial,  should  at  some  oppor- 
tune moment  be  given  the  floor  to  present  it.  I 
foresaw  what  a  row  it  was  bound  to  occasion. 

Toward  noon,  when  there  was  a  lull  in  the  pro- 
ceedings, I  said  with  an  emphasis  meant  to  carry 
conviction:  "Gentlemen  of  the  convention,  Miss 
Phoebe  Couzins,  a  representative  of  the  Woman's 
Association  of  America,  has  a  memorial  from  that 
body,  and  in  the  absence  of  other  business  the  chair 
will  now  recognize  her." 

Instantly  and  from  every  part  of  the  hall  arose 
cries  of  "No!"  These  put  some  heart  into  me. 
Many  a  time  as  a  schoolboy  I  had  proudly  de- 
claimed the  passage  from  John  Home's  tragedy, 
"My  Name  is  Norval."  Again  I  stood  upon  "the 
Grampian  hills."  The  committee  was  escorting 
Miss  Couzins  down  the  aisle.    When  she  came  with- 

[291] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

in  the  radius  of  my  poor  vision  I  saw  that  she  WnS 
a  beauty  and  dressed  to  kill. 

That  was  reassurance.  .Gaining  a  little  time 
while  the  hall  fairly  rocked  with  its  thunder  of 
negation  I  laid  the  gavel  down  and  stepped  to  the 
edge  of  the  platform  and  gave  Miss  Couzins  my 
hand. 

As  she  appeared  above  the  throng  there  was  a 
momentary  "Ah!"  and  then  a  lull,  broken  by  a 
single  voice: 

"Mister  Chairman.    I  rise  to  a  point  of  order." 

Leading  Miss  Couzins  to  the  front  of  the  stage 
I  took  up  the  gavel  and  gave  a  gentle  rap,  saying: 
"The  gentleman  will  take  his  seat." 

"But,  Mister  Chairman,  I  rose  to  a  point  of 
order,"  he  vociferated. 

"The  gentleman  will  take  his  seat  instantly,"  I 
answered  in  a  tone  of  one  about  to  throw  the  gavel 
at  his  head.  "No  point  of  order  is  in  order  when  a 
lady  has  the  floor." 

After  that  Miss  Couzins  received  a  positive  ova- 
tion and  having  delivered  her  message  retired  in  a 
blaze  of  glory. 

[292] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

VI 

Mr.  Tilden  was  nominated  on  the  second  ballot. 
The  campaign  that  followed  proved  one  of  the  most 
memorable  in  our  history.  When  it  came  to  an  end 
the  result  showed  on  the  face  of  the  returns  196 
in  the  Electoral  College,  eleven  more  than  a  ma- 
jority; and  in  the  popular  vote  4,300,316,  a  ma- 
jority of  264,300  for  Tilden  over  Hayes. 

How  this  came  to  be  first  contested  and  then 
complicated  so  as  ultimately  to  be  set  aside  has  been 
minutely  related  by  its  authors.  The  newspapers, 
both  Republican  and  Democratic,  of  November  8, 
1876,  the  morning  after  the  election,  conceded  an 
overwhelming  victory  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks. 
There  was,  however,  a  single  exception.  The  New 
York  Times  had  gone  to  press  with  its  first  edition, 
leaving  the  result  in  doubt  but  inclining  toward  the 
success  of  the  Democrats.  In  its  later  editions  this 
tentative  attitude  was  changed  to  the  statement 
that  Mr.  Hayes  lacked  the  vote  of  Florida — 
"claimed  by  the  Republicans" —  to  be  sure  of  the 
required  votes  in  the  Electoral  College. 

The  story  of  this  surprising  discrepancy  be- 
tween midnight  and  daylight  reads  like  a  chapter  of 
fiction. 

[293] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

After  the  early  edition  of  the  Times  had  gone  to 
press  certain  members  of  the  editorial  staff  were  at 
supper,  very  much  cast  down  by  the  returns,  when 
a  messenger  brought  a  telegram  from  Senator 
Barnum,  of  Connecticut,  financial  head  of  the 
Democratic  National  Committee,  asking  for  the 
Times'  latest  news  from  Oregon,  Louisiana, 
Florida  and  South  Carolina.  But  for  that  un- 
lucky telegram  Tilden  would  probably  have  been 
inaugurated  President  of  the  United  States. 

The  Times  people,  intense  Republican  partisans, 
at  once  saw  an  opportunity.  If  Barnum  did  not 
know,  why  might  not  a  doubt  be  raised?  At  once 
the  editorial  in  the  first  edition  was  revised  to  take 
a  decisive  tone  and  declare  the  election  of  Hayes. 
One  of  the  editorial  council,  Mr.  John  C.  Reid, 
hurried  to  Republican  headquarters  in  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Hotel,  which  he  found  deserted,  the 
triumph  of  Tilden  having  long  before  sent  every- 
body to  bed.  Mr.  Reid  then  sought  the  room  of 
Senator  Zachariah  Chandler,  chairman  of  the  Na- 
tional Republican  Committee. 

While  upon  this  errand  he  encountered  in  the 
hotel  corridor  "a  small  man  wearing  an  enormous 
pair  of  goggles,  his  hat  drawn  over  his  ears,  a  great- 
[294] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

coat  with  a  heavy  military  cloak,  and  carrying  a 
gripsack  and  newspaper  in  his  hand.  The  news- 
paper was  the  New  York  Tribune,"  announcing 
the  election  of  Tilden  and  the  defeat  of  Hayes.  The 
newcomer  was  Mr.  William  E.  Chandler,  even  then 
a  very  prominent  Republican  politician,  just  ar- 
rived from  New  Hampshire  and  very  much  ex- 
asperated by  what  he  had  read. 

Mr.  Reid  had  another  tale  to  tell.  The  two 
found  Mr.  Zachariah  Chandler,  who  bade  them 
leave  him  alone  and  do  whatever  they  thought  best. 
They  did  so,  consumingly,  sending  telegrams  to 
Columbia,  Tallahassee  and  New  Orleans,  stating 
to  each  of  the  parties  addressed  that  the  result  of 
the  election  depended  upon  his  State.  To  these  was 
appended  the  signature  of  Zachariah  Chandler. 

Later  in  the  day  Senator  Chandler,  advised  of 
what  had  been  set  on  foot  and  its  possibilities,  is- 
sued from  National  Republican  headquarters  this 
laconic  message:  "Hayes  has  185  electoral  votes 
and  is  elected." 

Thus  began  and  was  put  in  motion  the  scheme  to 
confuse  the  returns  and  make  a  disputed  count  of 
the  vote. 

[295] 


'MARSE  HENRY" 


VII 

The  day  after  the  election  I  wired  Mr.  Tilden 
suggesting  that  as  Governor  of  New  York  he  pro- 
pose to  Mr.  Hayes,  the  Governor  of  Ohio,  that  they 
unite  upon  a  committee  of  eminent  citizens,  com- 
posed in  equal  numbers  of  the  friends  of  each,  who 
should  proceed  at  once  to  Louisiana,  which  ap- 
peared to  be  the  objective  point  of  greatest  moment 
to  the  already  contested  result.  Pursuant  to  a  tele- 
graphic correspondence  which  followed,  I  left 
Louisville  that  night  for  New  Orleans.  I  was  joined 
en  route  by  Mr.  Lamar  and  General  Walthal,  of 
Mississippi,  and  together  we  arrived  in  the  Cres- 
cent City  Friday  morning. 

It  has  since  transpired  that  the  Republicans  were 
promptly  advised  by  the  Western  Union  Telegraph 
Company  of  all  that  had  passed  over  its  wires,  my 
dispatches  to  Mr.  Tilden  being  read  in  Republican 
headquarters  at  least  as  soon  as  they  reached  Gram- 
ercy  Park. 

Mr.  Tilden  did  not  adopt  the  plan  of  a  direct 
proposal  to  Mr.  Hayes.  Instead  he  chose  a  body 
of  Democrats  to  go  to  the  "seat  of  war."  But  be- 
fore any  of  them  had  arrived  General  Grant,  the 
[296] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

actual  President,  anticipating  what  was  about  to 
happen,  appointed  a  body  of  Republicans  for  the 
like  purpose,  and  the  advance  guard  of  these  ap- 
peared on  the  scene  the  following  Monday. 

Within  a  week  the  St.  Charles  Hotel  might  have 
been  mistaken  for  a  caravansary  of  the  national 
capital.  Among  the  Republicans  were  John  Sher- 
man, Stanley  Matthews,  Garfield,  Evarts,  Logan, 
Kelley,  Stoughton,  and  many  others.  Among  the 
Democrats,  besides  Lamar,  Walthal  and  myself, 
came  Lyman  Trumbull,  Samuel  J.  Randall,  Wil- 
liam R.  Morrison,  McDonald,  of  Indiana,  and 
many  others. 

A  certain  degree  of  personal  intimacy  existed 
between  the  members  of  the  two  groups,  and  the 
"entente"  was  quite  as  unrestrained  as  might  have 
existed  between  rival  athletic  teams.  A  Kentucky 
friend  sent  me  a  demijohn  of  what  was  represented 
as  very  old  Bourbon,  and  I  divided  it  with  "our 
friends  the  enemy."  New  Orleans  was  new  to  most 
of  the  "visiting  statesmen,"  and  we  attended  the 
places  of  amusement,  lived  in  the  restaurants,  and 
saw  the  sights  as  if  we  had  been  tourists  in  a  foreign 
land  and  not  partisans  charged  with  the  business 

[297] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  adjusting  a  Presidential  election  from  implacable 
points  of  view. 

My  own  relations  were  especially  friendly  with 
John  Sherman  and  James  A.  Garfield,  a  colleague 
on  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and  with 
Stanley  Matthews,  a  near  kinsman  by  marriage, 
who  had  stood  as  an  elder  brother  to  me  from  my 
childhood. 

Corruption  was  in  the  air.  That  the  Returning 
Board  was  for  sale  and  could  be  bought  was  the 
universal  impression.  Every  day  some  one  turned 
up  with  pretended  authority  and  an  offer  to  sell. 
Most  of  these  were,  of  course,  the  merest  adven- 
turers. It  was  my  own  belief  that  the  Returning 
Board  was  playing  for  the  best  price  it  could  get 
from  the  Republicans  and  that  the  only  effect  of 
any  offer  to  buy  on  our  part  would  be  to  assist  this 
scheme  of  blackmail. 

The  Returning  Board  consisted  of  two  white 
men,  Wells  and  Anderson;  and  two  negroes,  Ken- 
ner  and  Casanave.  One  and  all  they  were  without 
character.  I  was  tempted  through  sheer  curiosity 
to  listen  to  a  proposal  which  seemed  to  come  direct 
from  the  board  itself,  the  messenger  being  a  well- 
known  State  Senator.  As  if  he  were  proposing  to 
[298]       ' 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

dispose  of  a  horse  or  a  dog  he  stated  his  errand. 

"You  think  you  can  deliver  the  goods?"  said  I. 

"I  am  authorized  to  make  the  offer,"  he  an- 
swered. 

"And  for  how  much?"  I  asked. 

"Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,"  he 
replied.  "One  hundred  thousand  each  for  Wells 
and  Anderson,  and  twenty-five  thousand  apiece  for 
the  niggers." 

To  my  mind  it  was  a  joke.  "Senator,"  said  I, 
"the  terms  are  as  cheap  as  dirt.  I  don't  happen 
to  have  the  amount  about  me  at  the  moment,  but 
I  will  communicate  with  my  principal  and  see  you 
later." 

Having  no  thought  of  entertaining  the  proposal, 
I  had  forgotten  the  incident,  when  two  or  three 
days  later  my  man  met  me  in  the  lobby  of  the  hotel 
and  pressed  for  a  definite  reply.  I  then  told  him 
I  had  found  that  I  possessed  no  authority  to  act 
and  advised  him  to  go  elsewhere. 

It  is  asserted  that  Wells  and  Anderson  did  agree 
to  sell  and  were  turned  down  by  Mr.  Hewitt ;  and, 
being  refused  their  demands  for  cash  by  the  Demo- 
crats, took  their  final  pay,  at  least  in  patronage, 
from  their  own  party. 

[299] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

VIII 

I  passed  the  Christmas  week  of  1876  in  New 
York  with  Mr.  Tilden.  On  Christmas  day  we  dined 
alone.  The  outlook,  on  the  whole,  was  cheering. 
With  John  Bigelow  and  Manton  Marble,  Mr.  Til- 
den had  been  busily  engaged  compiling  the  data  for 
a  constitutional  battle  to  be  fought  by  the  Demo- 
crats in  Congress,  maintaining  the  right  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  to  concurrent  jurisdic- 
tion with  the  Senate  in  the  counting  of  the  elec- 
toral vote,  pursuant  to  an  unbroken  line  of  prec- 
edents established  by  that  method  of  proceeding  in 
every  presidential  election  between  1793  and  1872. 

There  was  very  great  perplexity  in  the  public 
mind.  Both  parties  appeared  to  be  at  sea.  The 
dispute  between  the  Democratic  House  and  the  Re- 
publican Senate  made  for  thick  weather.  Contests 
of  the  vote  of  three  States — Louisiana,  South  Caro- 
lina and  Florida,  not  to  mention  single  votes  in 
Oregon  and  Vermont — which  presently  began  to 
blow  a  gale,  had  already  spread  menacing  clouds 
across  the  political  sky.  Except  Mr.  Tilden,  the 
wisest  among  the  leaders  knew  not  precisely  what 
to  do. 

[300] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

From  New  Orleans,  on  the  Saturday  night  suc- 
ceeding the  presidential  election,  I  had  telegraphed 
to  Mr.  Tilden  detailing  the  exact  conditions  there 
and  urging  active  and  immediate  agitation.  The 
chance  had  been  lost.  I  thought  then  and  I  still 
think  that  the  conspiracy  of  a  few  men  to  use  the 
corrupt  returning  boards  of  Louisiana,  South  Caro- 
lina and  Florida  to  upset  the  election  and  make  con- 
fusion in  Congress  might  by  prompt  exposure  and 
popular  appeal  have  been  thwarted.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  my  spirit  was  depressed  and  my  confidence 
discouraged  by  the  intense  quietude  on  our  side,  for 
I  was  sure  that  beneath  the  surface  the  Republi- 
cans, with  resolute  determination  and  multiplied 
resources,  were  as  busy  as  bees. 

Mr.  Robert  M.  McLane,  later  Governor  of 
Maryland  and  later  still  Minister  to  France — a 
man  of  rare  ability  and  large  expreience,  who  had 
served  in  Congress  and  in  diplomacy,  and  was  an 
old  friend  of  Mr.  Tilden — had  been  at  a  Gramercy 
Park  conference  when  my  New  Orleans  report  ar- 
rived, and  had  then  and  there  urged  the  agitation 
recommended  by  me.  He  was  now  again  in  New 
York.  When  a  lad  he  had  been  ;n  England  with 
his  father,  Lewis  McLane,  then  American  Minister 

[301] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  during  the  excitement 
over  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832.  He  had  witnessed 
the  popular  demonstrations  and  had  been  impressed 
by  the  direct  force  of  public  opinion  upon  law- 
making and  law-makers.  An  analogous  situation 
had  arrived  in  America.  The  Republican  Senate 
was  as  the  Tory  House  of  Lords.  We  must  or- 
ganize a  movement  such  as  had  been  so  effectual 
in  England.  Obviously  something  was  going  amiss 
with  us  and  something  had  to  be  done. 

It  was  agreed  that  I  should  return  to  Washing- 
ton and  make  a  speech  "feeling  the  pulse"  of  the 
country,  with  the  suggestion  that  in  the  National 
Capital  should  assemble  "a  mass  convention  of  at 
least  100,000  peaceful  citizens,"  exercising  "the 
freeman's  right  of  petition." 

The  idea  was  one  of  many  proposals  of  a  more 
drastic  kind  and  was  the  merest  venture.  I  myself 
had  no  great  faith  in  it.  But  I  prepared  the  speech, 
and  after  much  reading  and  revising,  it  was  held  by 
Mr.  Tilden  and  Mr.  McLane  to  cover  the  case  and 
meet  the  purpose,  Mr.  Tilden  writing  Mr.  Randall, 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  a  letter, 
carried  to  Washington  by  Mr.  McLane,  instruct- 
[302] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ing  him  what  to  do  in  the  event  that  the  popular 
response  should  prove  favorable; 

Alack  the  day!  The  Democrats  were  equal  to 
nothing  affirmative.  The  Republicans  were  united 
and  resolute.  I  delivered  the  speech,  not  in  the 
House,  as  had  been  intended,  but  at  a  public  meet- 
ing which  seemed  opportune.  The  Democrats  at 
once  set  about  denying  the  sinister  and  violent  pur- 
pose ascribed  to  it  by  the  Republicans,  who,  fully 
advised  that  it  had  emanated  from  Gramercy  Park 
and  came  by  authority,  started  a  counter  agitation 
of  their  own. 

I  became  the  target  for  every  kind  of  ridicule  and 
abuse.  Nast  drew  a  grotesque  cartoon  of  me,  dis- 
torting my  suggestion  for  the  assembling  of  100,- 
000  citizens,  which  was  both  offensive  and  libellous. 
Being  on  friendly  terms  with  the  Harpers,  I  made 
my  displeasure  so  resonant  in  Franklin  Square — 
Nast  himself  having  no  personal  ill  will  toward  me 
— that  a  curious  and  pleasing  opportunity  which 
came  to  pass  was  taken  to  make  amends.  A  son 
having  been  born  to  me,  Harper's  Weekly  con- 
tained an  atoning  cartoon  representing  the  child  in 
its  father's  arms,  and,  above,  the  legend  "10,000 
sons  from  Kentucky  alone."    Some  wag  said  that 

[303], 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  son  in  question  was  "the  only  one  of  the  100,- 
000  in  arms  who  came  when  he  was  called." 

For  many  years  afterward  I  was  pursued  by 
this  unlucky  speech,  or  rather  by  the  misinterpreta- 
tion given  to  it  alike  by  friend  and  foe.  Nast's  first 
cartoon  was  accepted  as  a  faithful  portrait,  and  I 
was  accordingly  satirized  and  stigmatized,  though 
no  thought  of  violence  ever  had  entered  my  mind, 
and  in  the  final  proceedings  I  had  voted  for  the 
Electoral  Commission  Bill  and  faithfully  stood  by 
its  decisions.  Joseph  Pulitzer,  who  immediately 
followed  me  on  the  occasion  named,  declared  that 
he  wanted  my  "one  hundred  thousand"  to  come 
fully  armed  and  ready  for  business;  yet  he  never 
was  taken  to  task  or  reminded  of  his  temerity. 

IX 

The  Electoral  Commission  Bill  was  considered 
with  great  secrecy  by  the  joint  committees  of  the 
House  and  Senate.  Its  terms  were  in  direct  con- 
travention of  Mr.  Tilden's  plan.  This  was  sim- 
plicity itself.  He  was  for  asserting  by  formal  reso- 
lution the  conclusive  right  of  the  two  Houses  act- 
ing concurrently  to  count  the  electoral  vote  and  de- 
termine what  should  be  counted  as  electoral  votes; 
[304] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  for  denying,  also  by  formal  resolution,  the 
pretension  set  up  by  the  Republicans  that  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Senate  had  lawful  right  to  assume  that 
function.  He  was  for  urging  that  issue  in  debate 
in  both  Houses  and  before  the  country.  He  thought 
that  if  the  attempt  should  be  made  to  usurp  for 
the  president  of  the  Senate  a  power  to  make  the 
count,  and  thus  practically  to  control  the  Presi- 
dential election,  the  scheme  would  break  down  in 
process  of  execution. 

Strange  to  say,  Mr.  Tilden  was  not  consulted  by 
the  party  leaders  in  Congress  until  the  fourteenth 
of  January,  and  then  only  by  Mr.  Hewitt,  the  extra 
constitutional  features  of  the  electoral-tribunal 
measure  having  already  received  the  assent  of  Mr. 
Bayard  and  Mr.  Thurman,  the  Democratic  mem- 
bers of  the  Senate  committee. 

Standing  by  his  original  plan  and  answering 
Mr.  Hewitt's  statement  that  Mr.  Bayard  and  Mr. 
Thurman  were  fully  committed,  Mr.  Tilden  said: 
"Is  it  not,  then,  rather  late  to  consult  me?" 

To  which  Mr.  Hewitt  replied:  "They  do  not  con- 
sult you.  They  are  public  men,  and  have  their  own 
duties  and  responsibilities.    I  consult  you." 

In  the  course  of  the  discussion  with  Mr.  Hewitt 

[305] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

which  followed  Mr.  Tilden  said:  "If  you  go  into 
conference  with  your  adversary,  and  can't  break  off 
because  you  feel  you  must  agree  to  something,  you 
cannot  negotiate  —  you  are  not  fit  to  negotiate. 
You  will  be  beaten  upon  every  detail." 

Replying  to  the  apprehension  of  a  collision  of 
force  between  the  parties  Mr.  Tilden  thought  it 
exaggerated,  but  said:  "Why  surrender  now?  You 
can  always  surrender.  Why  surrender  before  the 
battle  for  fear  you  may  have  to  surrender  after  the 
battle?" 

In  short,  Mr.  Tilden  condemned  the  proceeding 
as  precipitate.  It  was  a  month  before  the  time  for 
the  count,  and  he  saw  no  reason  why  opportunity 
should  not  be  given  for  consideration  and  consulta- 
tion by  all  the  representatives  of  the  people.  He 
treated  the  state  of  mind  of  Bayard  and  Thurman 
as  a  panic  in  which  they  were  liable  to  act  in  haste 
and  repent  at  leisure.  He  stood  for  publicity  and 
wider  discussion,  distrusting  a  scheme  to  submit 
such  vast  interests  to  a  small  body  sitting  in  the 
Capitol  as  likely  to  become  the  sport  of  intrigue  and 
fraud. 

Mr.  Hewitt  returned  to  Washington  and  with- 
out communicating  to  Mr.  Tilden's  immediate 
[306] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

friends  in  the  House  his  attitude  and  objection, 
united  with  Mr.  Thurman  and  Mr.  Bayard  in  com- 
pleting the  bill  and  reporting  it  to  the  Democratic 
Advisory  Committee,  as,  by  a  caucus  rule,  had  to 
be  done  with  all  measures  relating  to  the  great  issue 
then  before  us.  No  intimation  had  preceded  it.  It 
fell  like  a  bombshell  upon  the  members  of  the  com- 
mittee. 

In  the  debate  that  followed  Mr.  Bayard  was  very 
insistent,  answering  the  objections  at  once  offered 
by  me,  first  aggressively  and  then  angrily,  going  the 
length  of  saying,  "If  you  do  not  accept  this  plan  I 
shall  wash  my  hands  of  the  whole  business,  and 
you  can  go  ahead  and  seat  your  President  in  your 
own  way." 

Mr.  Randall,  the  Speaker,  said  nothing,  but  he 
was  with  me,  as  were  a  majority  of  my  colleagues. 
It  was  Mr.  Hunton,  of  Virginia,  who  poured  oil 
on  the  troubled  waters,  and  somewhat  in  doubt  as 
to  whether  the  changed  situation  had  changed  Mr. 
Tilden  I  yielded  my  better  judgment,  declaring  it 
as  my  opinion  that  the  plan  would  seat  Hayes ;  and 
there  being  no  other  protestant  the  committee 
finally  gave  a  reluctant  assent. 

In  open  session  a  majority  of  Democrats  favored 

[307] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  bill.  Many  of  them  made  it  their  own.  They 
passed  it.  There  was  belief  that  Justice  David 
Davis,  who  was  expected  to  become  a  member  of 
the  commission,  was  sure  for  Tilden.  If,  under  this 
surmise,  he  had  been,  the  political  complexion  of 
"8  to  7"  would  have  been  reversed. 

Elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  from  Illi- 
nois, Judge  Davis  declined  to  serve,  and  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Bradley  was  chosen  for  the  commission  in  his 
place. 

The  day  after  the  inauguration  of  Hayes  my 
kinsman,  Stanley  Matthews,  said  to  me:  "You 
people  wanted  Judge  Davis.  So  did  we.  I  tell 
you  what  I  know,  that  Judge  Davis  was  as  safe  for 
us  as  Judge  Bradley.  We  preferred  him  because 
he  carried  more  weight." 

The  subsequent  career  of  Judge  Davis  in  the 
Senate  gave  conclusive  proof  that  this  was  true. 

When  the  consideration  •  of  the  disputed  votes 
before  the  commission  had  proceeded  far  enough  to 
demonstrate  the  likelihood  that  its  final  decision 
would  be  for  Hayes  a  movement  of  obstruction  and 
delay,  a  filibuster,  was  organized  by  about  forty 
Democratic  members  of  the  House.  It  proved 
rather  turbulent  than  effective.  The  South  stood 
[308] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

very  nearly  solid  for  carrying  out  the  agreement 
in  good  faith. 

Toward  the  close  the  filibuster  received  what  ap- 
peared formidable  reinforcement  from  the 
Louisiana  delegation.  This  was  in  reality  merely 
a  bluff,  intended  to  induce  the  Hayes  people  to 
make  certain  concessions  touching  their  State  gov- 
ernment. It  had  the  desired  effect.  Satisfactory 
assurances  having  been  given,  the  count  proceeded 
to  the  end — a  very  bitter  end  indeed  for  the  Demo- 
crats. 

The  final  conference  between  the  Louisianans 
and  the  accredited  representatives  of  Mr.  Hayes 
was  held,  at  Wormley's  Hotel  and  came  to  be  called 
"the  Wormley  Conference."  It  was  the  subject  of 
uncommon  interest  and  heated  controversy  at  the 
time  and  long  afterward.  Without  knowing  why 
or  for  what  purpose,  I  was  asked  to  be  present  by 
my  colleague,  Mr.  Ellis,  of  Louisiana,  and  later  in 
the  day  the  same  invitation  came  to  me  from  the 
Republicans  through  Mr.  Garfield.  Something 
was  said  about  my  serving  as  a  referee. 

Just  before  the  appointed  hour  Gen.  M.  C.  But- 
ler, of  South  Carolina,  afterward  so  long  a  Senator 
in  Congress,  said  to  me :  "This  meeting  is  called  to 

[309] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

enable  Louisiana  to  make  terms  with  Hayes.  South 
Carolina  is  as  deeply  concerned  as  Louisiana,  but 
we  have  nobody  to  represent  us  in  Congress  and 
hence  have  not  been  invited.  South  Carolina  puts 
herself  in  your  hands  and  expects  you  to  secure  for 
her  whatever  terms  are  given  to  Louisiana." 

So  of  a  sudden  I  found  myself  invested  with  re- 
sponsibility equally  as  an  agent  and  a  referee. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  repeating  in  detail  all 
that  passed  at  this  Wormley  Conference,  made  pub- 
lic long  ago  by  Congressional  investigation.  When 
I  entered  the  apartment  of  Mr.  Evarts  at  Worm- 
ley's  I  found,  besides  Mr.  Evarts,  Mr.  John  Sher- 
man, Mr.  Garfield,  Governor  Dennison,  and  Mr. 
Stanley  Matthews,  of  the  Republicans;  and  Mr. 
Ellis,  Mr.  Levy,  and  Mr.  Burke,  Democrats  of 
Louisiana.  Substantially  the  terms  had  been  agreed 
upon  during  the  previous  conferences — that  is,  the 
promise  that  if  Hayes  came  in  the  troops  should  be 
withdrawn  and  the  people  of  Louisiana  be  left  free 
to  set  their  house  in  order  to  suit  themselves.  The 
actual  order  withdrawing  the  troops  was  issued  by 
President  Grant  two  or  three  days  later,  just  as  he 
was  going  out  of  office. 

"Now,  gentlemen,"  said  I,  half  in  jest,  "I  am 
[310] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

here  to  represent  South  Carolina;  and  if  the  terms 
given  to  Louisiana  are  not  equally  applied  to  South 
Carolina  I  become  a  filibuster  myself  to-morrow 
morning." 

There  was  some  chaffing  as  to  what  right  I  had 
there  and  how  I  got  in,  when  with  great  earnest- 
ness Governor  Dennison,  who  had  been  the  bearer 
of  a  letter  from  Mr.  Hayes,  which  he  had  read  to 
us,  put  his  hand  on  my  shoulder  and  said:  "As  a 
matter  of  course  the  Southern  policy  to  which  Mr. 
Hayes  has  here  pledged  himself  embraces  South 
Carolina  as  well  as  Louisiana." 

Mr.  Sherman,  Mr.  Garfield  and  Mr.  Evarts  con- 
curred warmly  in  this,  and  immediately  after  we 
separated  I  communicated  the  fact  to  General  But- 
ler. 

In  the  acrimonious  discussion  which  subsequently 
sought  to  make  "bargain,  intrigue  and  corrup- 
tion" of  this  Wormley  Conference,  and  to  involve 
certain  Democratic  members  of  the  House  who 
were  nowise  party  to  it  but  had  sympathized  with 
the  purpose  of  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina  to  ob- 
tain some  measure  of  relief  from  intolerable  local 
conditions,  I  never  was  questioned  or  assailed.  No 
one  doubted  my  fidelity  to  Mr.  Tilden,  who  had 

[311] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

been  promptly  advised  of  all  that  passed  and  who 
approved  what  I  had  done. 

Though  "conscripted,"  as  it  were,  and  rather  a 
passive  agent,  I  could  see  no  wrong  in  the  proceed- 
ing. I  had  spoken  and  voted  in  favor  of  the  Elec- 
toral Tribunal  Bill,  and  losing,  had  no  thought  of 
repudiating  its  conclusions.  Hayes  was  already  as 
good  as  seated.  If  the  States  of  Louisiana  and 
South  Carolina  could  save  their  local  autonomy  out 
of  the  general  wreck  there  seemed  no  good  reason 
to  forbid. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Republican  leaders  were 
glad  of  an  opportunity  to  make  an  end  of  the  cor- 
rupt and  tragic  farce  of  Reconstruction ;  to  unload 
their  party  of  a  dead  weight  which  had  been  bur- 
densome and  was  growing  dangerous;  mayhap  to 
punish  their  Southern  agents,  who  had  demanded 
so  much  for  doctoring  the  returns  and  making  an 
exhibit  in  favor  of  Hayes. 


Mr.  Tilden  accepted  the  result  with  equanimity. 

"I  was  at  his  house,"  says  John  Bigelow,  "when 
his  exclusion  was  announced  to  him,  and  also  on 
the  fourth  of  March  when  Mr.  Hayes  was  in- 
[312] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

augurated,  and  it  was  impossible  to  remark  any 
change  in  his  manner,  except  perhaps  that  he  was 
less  absorbed  than  usual  and  more  interested  in  cur- 
rent affairs." 

His  was  an  intensely  serious  mind;  and  he  had 
come  to  regard  the  presidency  as  rather  a  burden 
to  be  borne — an  opportunity  for  public  usefulness 
— involving  a  life  of  constant  toil  and  care,  than 
as  an  occasion  for  personal  exploitation  and  re- 
joicing. 

How  much  of  captivation  the  idea  of  the  presi- 
dency may  have  had  for  him  when  he  was  first 
named  for  the  office  I  cannot  say,  for  he  was  as 
unexultant  in  the  moment  of  victory  as  he  was 
unsubdued  in  the  hour  of  defeat ;  but  it  is  certainly 
true  that  he  gave  no  sign  of  disappointment  to  any 
of  his  friends. 

He  lived  nearly  ten  years  longer,  at  Greystone, 
in  a  noble  homestead  he  had  purchased  for  himself 
overlooking  the  Hudson  River,  the  same  ideal  life 
of  the  scholar  and  gentleman  that  he  had  passed 
in  Gramercy  Park. 

Looking  back  over  these  untoward  and  some- 
times mystifying  events,  I  have  often  asked  myself : 
Was  it  possible,  with  the  elements  what  they  were, 

[313] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  he  himself  what  he  was,  to  seat  Mr.  Tilden  in 
the  office  to  which  he  had  been  elected?  The  miss- 
ing ingredient  in  a  character  intellectually  and 
morally  great  and  a  personality  far  from  unim- 
pressive, was  the  touch  of  the  dramatic  discover- 
able in  most  of  the  leaders  of  men;  even  in  such 
leaders  as  William  of  Orange  and  Louis  XI;  as 
Cromwell  and  Washington. 

There  was  nothing  spectacular  about  Mr.  Til- 
den. Not  wanting  the  sense  of  humor,  he  seldom 
indulged  it.  In  spite  of  his  positiveness  of  opinion 
and  amplitude  of  knowledge  he  was  always  courte- 
ous and  deferential  in  debate.  He  had  none  of  the 
audacious  daring,  let  us  say,  of  Mr.  Blaine,  the 
energetic  self-assertion  of  Mr.  Roosevelt.  Either 
in  his  place  would  have  carried  all  before  him. 

I  repeat  that  he  was  never  a  subtle  schemer — 
sitting  behind  the  screen  and  pulling  his  wires — 
which  his  political  and  party  enemies  discovered 
him  to»be  as  soon  as  he  began  to  get  in  the  way 
of  the  machine  and  obstruct  the  march  of  the  self- 
elect.  His  confidences  were  not  effusive,  nor  their 
subjects  numerous.  His  deliberation  was  unfail- 
ing and  sometimes  it  carried  the  idea  of  indecision, 
not  to  say  actual  love  of  procrastination.  But  in  my 
[314] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

experience  with  him  I  found  that  he  usually  ended 
where  he  began,  and  it  was  nowise  difficult  for  those 
whom  he  trusted  to  divine  the  bias  of  his  mind 
where  he  thought  it  best  to  reserve  its  conclusions. 

I  do  not  think  in  any  great  affair  he  ever  hesi- 
tated longer  than  the  gravity  of  the  case  required 
of  a  prudent  man  or  that  he  had  a  preference  for 
delays  or  that  he  clung  tenaciously  to  both  horns 
of  the  dilemma,  as  his  training  and  instinct  might 
lead  him  to  do,  and  did  certainly  expose  him  to 
the  accusation  of  doing. 

He  was  a  philosopher  and  took  the  world  as  he 
found  it.  He  rarely  complained  and  never  in- 
veighed. He  had  a  discriminating  way  of  balanc- 
ing men's  good  and  bad  qualities  and  of  giving  each 
the  benefit  of  a  generous  accounting,  and  a  just  way 
of  expecting  no  more  of  a  man  thai\it  was  in  him 
to  yield.  As  he  got  into  deeper  water  his  stature 
rose  to  its  level,  and  from  his  exclusion  from  the 
presidency  in  1877  to  his  renunciation  of  public  af- 
fairs in  1884  and  his  death  in  1886  his  walks  and 
ways  might  have  been  a  study  for  all  who  would 
learn  life's  truest  lessons  and  know  the  real  sources 
of  honor,  happiness  and  fame. 

[315] 


W*£&v»*  tarn  ?S<m%$m i! 


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"Marse  Henry" 

<yW  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


HE  Nit Y    WATTERSON— FIFTY    YEARS    AGO 


"Marse  Henry ' 


AN  A UTOBIOCRAPHY 

By 
HENRY  WATTERSON 


Volume  II 
Illustrated 


NEW^LBJ^YORK 

GEORGE  H.DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


w&  .. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  THE  THIRTEENTH 

PAGE 

Charles  Eames  and  Charles  Sumner — Schttrz  and 
Lamar — I  Go  to  Congress — A  Heroic  Ken- 
tuckian — Stephen  Foster  and  His  Songs — 
Music  and  Theodore  Thomas 15 

CHAPTER  THE  FOURTEENTH 

Henry  Adams  and  the  Adams  Family — John  Hay 
and  Frank  Mason — The  Three  Mousquetaires 
of  Culture — Paris — "The  Frenchman" — The 
South  of  France 33 

CHAPTER  THE  FIFTEENTH 

Still  the  Gay  Capital  of  France — Its  Environs 
— Walewska  and  de  Morny — Thackeray  in 
Paris — A  Pension  Adventure 54 

CHAPTER  THE  SIXTEENTH 

Monte  Carlo — The  European  Shrine  of  Sport 
and  Fashion — Apocryphal  Gambling  Stories 
— Leopold,  King  of  the  Belgians — An  Able 
and  Picturesque  Man  of  Business     ....       73 

CHAPTER  THE  SEVENTEENTH 

A  Parisian  Pension — The  Widow  of  Walewska — 
Napoleon's  Daughter-in-law — The  Changeless 
— A  Moral  and  Orderly  City 90 

[v] 


I 


i 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  THE  EIGHTEENTH 

The  Grover  Cleveland  Period — President  Arthur 
and  Mr.  Blaine  —  John  Chamberlin  —  The 
Decrees  of  Destiny 102 

CHAPTER  THE  NINETEENTH 

Mr.  Cleveland  in  the  White  House — Mr.  Bayard 
in  the  Department  of  State — Queer  Appoint- 
ments to  Office — The  One-party  Power — The 
End  of  North  and  South  Sectionalism  /    .      .     114 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTIETH 

The  Real  Grover  Cleveland — Two  Clevelands 
Before  and  After  Marriage — A  Correspond- 
ence and  a  Break  of  Personal  Relations  .      .      132 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-FIRST 

Stephen  Foster,  the  Song  Writer — A  Friend 
Comes  to  the  Rescue  of  His  Originality — 
"My  Old  Kentucky  Home"  and  the  "Old 
Folks  at  Home" — General  Sherman  and 
"Marching  Through  Georgia" 146 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-SECOND 

Theodore  Roosevelt — His  Problematic  Character 
— He  Offers  Me  an  Appointment — His  Bon- 
homie and  Chivalry — Proud  of  His  Rebel  Kin     158 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-THIRD 

The  Actor  and  the  Journalist — The  Newspaper 
and  the  State — Joseph  Jefferson — His  Per- 
sonal and  Artistic  Career — Modest  Character 

and  Religious  Belief 170 

[vil 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH 

The  Writing  of  Memoirs — Some  Characteristics 
of  Carl  Schurz — Sam  Bowles — Horace  White 
and  the  Mugwumps 187 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH 

Every  Trade  Has  Its  Tricks — I  Play  One  on 
William  McEjnley — Far  Away  Party  Politics 
and  Political  Issues 198 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-SIXTH 

A  Libel  on  Mr.  Cleveland — His  Fondness  for 
Cards — Some  Poker  Stories — The  "Senate 
Game" — Tom  Ochiltree,  Senator  Allison  and 
General  Schenck 209 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-SEVENTH 

The  Profession  of  Journalism — Newspapers  and 
Editors   in  America — Bennett,   Greeley  and 
Raymond — Forney  and  Dana — The  Education 
of  a  Journalist 224 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Bullies  and  Braggarts — Some  Kentucky  Illustra- 
tions— The  Old  Galt  House — The  Throckmor- 
tons  —  A  Famous  Surgeon  —  "Old  Hell's 
Delight" 240 

CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-NINTH 

About  Political  Conventions,  State  and  National 
— "Old  Ben  Butler" — His  Appearance  as  a 
Trouble-maker  in  the  Democratic  National 
Convention  of  1892 — Tarifa  and  the  Tariff — 

Spain  as  a  Frightful  Example 249 

[vii] 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  THE  THIRTIETH 

The  Makers  of  the  Republic — Lincoln,  Jefferson, 
Clay  and  Webster — The  Proposed  League  of 
Nations  —  The  Wilsonian  Incertitude  —  The 
"New  Freedom" 263 

CHAPTER  THE  THIRTY-FIRST 

The  Age  of  Miracles — A  Story  of  Franklin 
Pierce — Simon  Suggs  and  Billy  Sunday — Jef- 
ferson Davis  and  Aaron  Burr — Certain  Con- 
stitutional Shortcomings 280 

CHAPTER  THE  THIRTY-SECOND 

A  War  Episode — I  Meet  My  Fate — I  Marry  and 
Make  a  Home — The  Ups  and  Downs  of  Life 
Lead  to  a  Happy  Old  Age 296 


[viii] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Henry  Watterson — Fifty  Years  Ago      .     .  Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Henry  Woodfire  Grady — One  of  Mr.  Watterson's 

"Boys" 48 

Mr.  Watterson's  Library  at  "Mansfield"      .     .     120 

A  Corner  of  "Mansfield" — Home  of  Mr.  Watter- 
son     136 

Henry  Watterson  (Photograph  Taken  in  Florida)     160 

Henry  Watterson.     From   a   Painting  by  Louis 
Mark  in  the  Manhattan  Club,  New  York  .     .     232 


[ix] 


"Marse  Henry" 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

CHAPTER  THE  THIRTEENTH 

CHARLES  EAMES  AND  CHARLES  SUMNER — SCHURZ 
AND  LAMAR — I  GO  TO  CONGRESS — A  HEROIC 
KENTUCKIAN — STEPHEN  FOSTER  AND  HIS  SONGS 
— MUSIC  AND  THEODORE  THOMAS 


SWIFT'S  definition  of  "conversation"  did  not 
preside  over  or  direct  the  daily  intercourse  be- 
tween Charles  Sumner,  Charles  Eames  and  Rob- 
ert J.  Walker  in  the  old  days  in  the  National 
Capital.  They  did  not  converse.  They  discoursed. 
They  talked  sententiously  in  portentous  essays  and 
learned  dissertations.  I  used  to  think  it  great, 
though  I  nursed  no  little  dislike  of  Sumner. 

Charles  Eames  was  at  the  outset  of  his  career  a 
ne'er-do-well  New  Englander — a  Yankee  Jack- 
of -all-trades — kept  at  the  front  by  an  exceedingly 

[15] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

clever  wife.  Through  the  favor  she  enjoyed  at 
court  he  received  from  Pierce  and  Buchanan  unim- 
portant diplomatic  appointments.  During  their  so- 
journs in  Washington  their  home  was  a  kind  of 
political  and  literary  headquarters.  Mrs.  Eames 
had  established  a  salon — the  first  attempt  of  the 
kind  made  there;  and  it  was  altogether  a  success. 
Her  Sundays  evenings  were  notable,  indeed.  Who- 
ever was  worth  seeing,  if  in  town,  might  usually  be 
found  there.  Charles  Sumner  led  the  procession. 
He  was  a  most  imposing  person.  Both  handsome 
and  distinguished  in  appearance,  he  possessed  in  an 
eminent  degree  the  Harvard  pragmatism — or,  shall 
I  say,  affectation? — and  seemed  never  happy  ex- 
cept on  exhibition.  He  had  made  a  profitable  poli- 
tical and  personal  issue  of  the  Preston  Brooks  at- 
tack. Brooks  was  an  exceeding  light  weight,  but 
he  did  for  Sumner  more  than  Sumner  could  ever 
have  done  for  himself. 

In  the  Charles  Eames  days  Sumner  was  exceed- 
ingly disagreeable  to  me.  Many  people,  indeed, 
thought  him  so.  Many  years  later,  in  the  Greeley 
campaign  of  1872,  Schurz  brought  us  together — 
they  had  become  as  very  brothers  in  the  Senate — 
[16] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  I  found  him  the  reverse  of  my  boyish  ill  con- 
ceptions. 

He  was  a  great  old  man.  He  was  a  delightful 
old  man,  every  inch  a  statesman,  much  of  a  scholar, 
and  something  of  a  hero.  I  grew  in  time  to  be 
actually  fond  of  him,  passed  with  him  entire  after- 
noons and  evenings  in  his  library,  mourned  sincere- 
ly when  he  died,  and  went  with  Schurz  to  Boston, 
on  the  occasion  when  that  great  German- American 
delivered  the  memorial  address  in  honor  of  the  dead 
Abolitionist. 

Of  all  the  public  men  of  that  period  Carl  Schurz 
most  captivated  me.  When  we  first  came  into  per- 
sonal relations,  at  the  Liberal  Convention,  which 
assembled  at  Cincinnati  and  nominated  Greeley 
and  Brown  as  a  presidential  ticket,  he  was  just 
turned  forty-three ;  I,  two  and  thirty.  The  closest 
intimacy  followed.  Our  tastes  were  much  alike. 
Both  of  us  had  been  educated  in  music.  He  played 
the  piano  with  intelligence  and  feeling — especially 
Schumann,  Brahms  and  Mendelssohn,  neither  of 
us  ever  having  quite  reached  the  "high  jinks"  of 
Wagner. 

To  me  his  oratory  was  wonderful.  He  spoke  to 
an  audience  of  five  or  ten  thousand  as  he  would 

£17] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

have  talked  to  a  party  of  three  or  six.  His  style 
was  simple,  natural,  unstrained;  the  lucid  state- 
ment  and  cogent  argument  now  and  again  irradi- 
ated by  a  salient  passage  of  satire  or  a  burst  of  not 
too  eloquent  rhetoric. 

He  was  quite  knocked  out  by  the  nomination  of 
Horace  Greeley.  For  a  long  time  he  could  not 
reconcile  himself  to  support  the  ticket.  Horace 
White  and  I  addressed  ourselves  to  the  task  of 
"fetching  him  into  camp"-there  being  in  point  of 
fact  nowhere  else  for  him  to  go-though  we  had  to 
get  up  what  was  called  The  Fifth  Avenue  Con- 
ference to  make  a  bridge. 

Truth  to  say,  Schurz  never  wholly  adjusted  him- 
self to  political  conditions  in  the  United  States.  He 
once  said  to  me  in  one  of  the  querulous  moods  that 
sometimes  overcame  him:  "If  I  should  live  a  hun- 
dred years  my  enemies  would  still  call  me  a— 

Dutchman!" 

It  was  Schurz,  as  I  have  said,  who  brought 
Lamar  and  me  together.  The  Mississippian  had 
been  a  Secession  Member  of  Congress  when  I  was 
a  Unionist  scribe  in  the  reporters'  gallery.  I  was 
a  furious  partisan  in  those  days  and  disliked  the 
Secessionists  intensely.  Of  them,  Lamar  was  most 
[18] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

aggressive.    I  later  learned  that  he  was  very  many- 
sided  and  accomplished,  the  most  interesting  and 
lovable  of  men.    He  and  Schurz  "froze  together," 
as,  brought  together  by  Schurz,  he  and  I  "froze  to- 
gether."   On  one  side  he  was  a  sentimentalist  and 
on  the  other  a  philosopher,  but  on  all  sides  a  fighter. 
They  called  him  a  dreamer.    He  sprang  from  a 
race  of  chevaliers  and  scholars.     Oddly  enough, 
albeit  in  his  moods  a  recluse,  he  was  a  man  of  the 
world;  a  favorite  in  society;  very  much  at  home  in 
European  courts,  especially  in  that  of  England; 
the  friend  of  Thackeray,  at  whose  house,  when  in 
London,  he  made  his  abode.    Lady  Ritchie— Anne 
Thackeray— told  me  many  amusing  stories  of  his 
whimsies.    He  was  a  man  among  brainy  men  and 
a  lion  among  clever  women. 

We  had  already  come  to  be  good  friends  and 
constant  comrades  when  the  whirligig  of  time  threw 
us  together  for  a  little  while  in  the  lower  house  of 
Congress.  One  day  he  beckoned  me  over  to  his 
seat.  He  was  leaning  backward  with  his  hands 
crossed  behind  his  head. 

As  I  stood  in  front  of  him  he  said:  "On  the 
eighth  of  February,  1858,  Mrs.  Gwin,  of  Cali- 
fornia, gave  a  fancy  dress  ball.    Mr.  Lamar,  of 

[19] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Mississippi,  a  member  of  Congress,  was  there. 
Also  a  glorious  young  woman — a  vision  of  beauty 
and  grace — with  whom  the  handsome  and  distin- 
guished young  statesman  danced — danced  once, 
twice,  thrice,  taking  her  likewise  down  to  supper. 
He  went  to  bed,  turned  his  face  to  the  wall  and 
dreamed  of  her.  That  was  twenty  years  ago.  To- 
day this  same  Mr.  Lamar,  after  an  obscure  inter- 
regnum, was  with  Mrs.  Lamar  looking  over  Wash- 
ington for  an  apartment.  In  quest  of  cheap  lodg- 
ing they  came  to  a  mean  house  in  a  mean  quarter, 
where  a  poor,  wizened,  ill-clad  woman  showed  them 
through  the  meanly  furnished  rooms.  Of  course 
they  would  not  suffice. 

"As  they  were  coming  away  the  great  Mr.  Lamar 
said  to  the  poor  landlady,  'Madam,  have  you  lived 
long  in  Washington?'  She  said  all  her  life. 
'Madam,'  he  continued,  'were  you  at  a  fancy  dress 
ball  given  by  Mrs.  Senator  Gwin  of  California,  the 
eighth  of  February,  1858?'  She  said  she  was.  'Do 
you  remember,'  the  statesman,  soldier  and  orator 
continued,  'a  young  and  handsome  Mississippian,  a 
member  of  Congress,  by  the  name  of  Lamar?'  She 
said  she  didn't." 

I  rather  think  that  Lamar  was  the  biggest 
[20] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

brained  of  all  the  men  I  have  met  in  Washington. 
He  possessed  the  courage  of  his  convictions.  A 
doctrinaire,  there  was  nothing  of  the  typical  doc- 
trinaire, or  theorist,  about  him.  He  really  believed 
that  cotton  was  king  and  would  compel  England  to 
espouse  the  cause  of  the  South. 

Despite  his  wealth  of  experience  and  travel  he 
was  not  overmuch  of  a  raconteur,  but  he  once  told 
me  a  good  story  about  his  friend  Thackeray.  The 
two  were  driving  to  a  banquet  of  the  Literary 
Fund,  where  Dickens  was  to  preside.  "Lamar," 
said  Thackeray,  "they  say  I  can't  speak.  But  if 
I  want  to  I  can  speak.  I  can  speak  every  bit  as 
good  as  Dickens,  and  I  am  going  to  show  you  to- 
night that  I  can  speak  almost  as  good  as  you." 
When  the  moment  arrived  Thackeray  said  never  a 
word.  Returning  in  the  cab,  both  silent,  Thackeray 
suddenly  broke  forth.  "Lamar,"  he  exclaimed, 
"don't  you  think  you  have  heard  the  greatest  speech 
to-night  that  was  never  delivered?" 

II 

Holding  office,  especially  going  to  Congress,  had 
never  entered  any  wish  or  scheme  of  mine.    Office 

[21] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

seemed  to  me  ever  a  badge  of  bondage.  I  knew 
too  much  of  the  national  capital  to  be  allured  by 
its  evanescent  and  lightsome  honors.  When  the 
opportunity  sought  me  out  none  of  its  illusions  ap- 
pealed to  me.  But  after  a  long  uphill  fight  for  per- 
sonal and  political  recognition  in  Kentucky  an  elec- 
tion put  a  kind  of  seal  upon  the  victory  I  had  won 
and  enabled  me  in  a  way  to  triumph  over  my 
enemies.  I  knew  that  if  I  accepted  the  nomination 
offered  me  I  would  get  a  big  popular  vote — as  I 
did — and  so,  one  full  term,  and  half  a  term,  inci- 
dent to  the  death  of  the  sitting  member  for  the 
Louisville  district  being  open  to  me,  I  took  the  short 
term,  refusing  the  long  term. 

Though  it  was  midsummer  and  Congress  was 
about  to  adjourn  I  went  to  Washington  and  was 
sworn  in.  A  friend  of  mine,  Col.  Wake  Holman, 
had  made  a  bet  with  one  of  our  pals  I  would  be 
under  arrest  before  I  had  been  twenty-four  hours 
in  town,  and  won  it.  It  happened  in  this  wise :  The 
night  of  the  day  when  I  took  my  seat  there  was  an 
all-night  session.  I  knew  too  well  what  that  meant, 
and,  just  from  a  long  tiresome  journey,  I  went  to 
bed  and  slept  soundly  till  sunrise.  Just  as  I  was 
up  and  dressing  for  a  stroll  about  the  old,  familiar, 
[22] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

dearly  loved  quarter  of  the  town  there  came  an  im- 
perative rap  upon  the  door  and  a  voice  said:  "Get 
up,  colonel,  quick!  This  is  a  sergeant  at  arms. 
There  has  been  a  call  of  the  House  and  I  am  after 
you.  Everybody  is  drunk,  more  or  less,  and  they 
are  noisy  to  have  some  fun  with  you." 

It  was  even  as  he  said.  Everybody,  more  or  less, 
was  drunk — especially  the  provisional  speaker 
whom  Mr.  Randall  had  placed  in  the  chair — and 
when  we  arrived  and  I  was  led  a  prisoner  down  the 
center  aisle  pandemonium  broke  loose. 

They  had  all  sorts  of  fun  with  me,  such  as  it  was. 
It  was  moved  that  I  be  fined  the  full  amount  of  my 
mileage.  Then  a  resolution  was  offered  suspend- 
ing my  membership  and  sending  me  under  guard 
to  the  old  Capitol  prison.  Finally  two  or  three  of 
my  friends  rescued  me  and  business  was  allowed  to 
proceed.  It  was  the  last  day  of  a  very  long  session 
and  those  who  were  not  drunk  were  worn  out. 

When  I  returned  home  there  was  a  celebration 
in  honor  of  the  bet  Wake  Holman  had  won  at  my 
expense.  Wake  was  the  most  attractive  and  lovable 
of  men,  by  nature  a  hero,  by  profession  a  "filibus- 
ter" and  soldier  of  fortune.  At  two  and  twenty  he 
was  a  private  in  Col.  Humphrey  Marshall's  Regi- 

[23]    ~ 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ment  of  Kentucky  Riflemen,  which  reached  the 
scene  of  hostilities  upon  the  Rio  Grande  in  the 
midsummer  of  1846.  He  had  enlisted  from  Owen 
county — "Sweet  Owen,"  as  it  used  to  be  called — 
and  came  of  good  stock,  his  father,  Col.  Harry  Hol- 
man,  in  the  days  of  aboriginal  fighting  and  j  ournal- 
ism,  a  frontier  celebrity.  Wake's  company,  out  on 
a  scout,  was  picked  off  by  the  Mexicans,  and  the  dis- 
tinction between  United  States  soldiers  and  Texan 
rebels  not  being  yet  clearly  established,  a  drumhead 
court-martial  ordered  "the  decimation." 

This  was  a  decree  that  one  of  every  ten  of  the 
Yankee  captives  should  be  shot.  There  being  a 
hundred  of  Marshall's  men,  one  hundred  beans — 
ninety  white  and  ten  black — were  put  in  a  hat. 
Then  the  company  was  mustered  as  on  dress 
parade.  Whoso  drew  a  white  bean  was  to  be  held 
prisoner  of  war;  whoso  drew  a  black  bean  was  to 
die. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  drawing  Wake  drew  a 
white  bean.  Toward  the  close  the  turn  of  a  neigh- 
bor and  comrade  from  Owen  county  who  had  left 
a  wife  and  baby  at  home  was  called.  He  and  Wake 
were  standing  together,  Holman  brushed  him 
aside,  walked  out  in  his  place  and  drew  his  bean.  It 
[24] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

turned  out  to  be  a  white  one.  Twice  within  the 
half  hour  death  had  looked  him  in  the  eye  and 
found  no  blinking  there. 

I  have  seen  quite  a  deal  of  hardihood,  endurance, 
suffering,  in  both  women  and  men;  splendid  cour- 
age on  the  field  of  action ;  perfect  self-possession  in 
the  face  of  danger;  but  I  rather  think  that  Wake 
Holman's  exploit  that  day — next  to  actually  dying 
for  a  friend,  what  can  be  nobler  than  being  willing 
to  die  for  him  ? — is  the  bravest  thing  I  know  or  have 
ever  been  told  of  mortal  man. 

Wake  Holman  went  to  Cuba  in  the  Lopez  Re- 
bellion of  1851,  and  fought  under  Pickett  at  the 
Battle  of  Cardenas.  In  1855-56  he  was  in  Nica- 
ragua, with  Walker.  He  commanded  a  Kentucky 
regiment  of  cavalry  on  the  Union  side  in  our  War 
of  Sections.  After  the  war  he  lived  the  life  of  a 
hunter  and  fisher  at  his  home  in  Kentucky;  a 
cheery,  unambitious,  big-brained  and  big-hearted 
cherub,  whom  it  would  not  do  to  "projeck"  with, 
albeit  with  entire  safety  you  could  pick  his  pocket ; 
the  soul  of  simplicity  and  amiability. 

To  have  known  him  was  an  education  in  primal 
manhood.  To  sit  at  his  hospitable  board,  with  him 
at  the  head  of  the  table,  was  an  inspiration  in  the 

[25] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

genius  of  life  and  the  art  of  living.  One  of  his 
familiars  started  the  joke  that  when  Wake  drew 
the  second  white  bean  "he  got  a  peep."  He  took  it 
kindly ;  though  in  my  intimacy  with  him,  extending 
over  thirty  years,  I  never  heard  him  refer  to  any 
of  his  adventures  as  a  soldier. 

It  was  not  possible  that  such  a  man  should  pro- 
vide for  his  old  age.  He  had  little  forecast.  He 
knew  not  the  value  of  money.  He  had  humor,  af- 
fection and  courage.  I  held  him  in  real  love  and 
honor.  When  the  Mexican  War  Pension  Act  was 
passed  by  Congress  I  took  his  papers  to  General 
Black,  the  Commissioner  of  Pensions,  and  related 
this  story. 

"I  have  promised  Gen.  Cerro  Gordo  Williams," 
said  General  Black,  referring  to  the  then  senior 
United  States  Senator  from  Kentucky,  "that  his 
name  shall  go  first  on  the  roll  of  these  Mexican 
pensioners.  But" — and  the  General  looked  beam- 
ingly in  my  face,  a  bit  tearful,  and  says  he:  "Wake 
Holman's  name  shall  come  right  after."  And  there 
it  is. 

in 

I  was  very  carefully  and  for  those  times  not 
ignorantly  taught  in  music.    Schell,  his  name  was, 
[26] 


"MARSE  HENRY' 

and  they  called  him  "Professor."  He  lived  over 
in  Georgetown,  where  he  had  organized  a  little 
group  of  Prussian  refugees  into  a  German  club, 
and  from  my  tenth  to  my  fifteenth  year — at  first 
regularly,  and  then  in  a  desultory  way  as  I  came 
back  to  Washington  City  from  my  school  in  Phila- 
delphia, he  hammered  Bach  and  Handel  and  Mo- 
zart— nothing  so  modern  as  Mendelssohn— into  my 
not  unwilling  nor  unreceptive  mind,  for  my  bent 
was  in  the  beginning  to  compose  dramas,  and  in 
the  end  operas. 

Adelina  Patti  was  among  my  child  companions. 
Once  in  the  national  capital,  when  I  was  12  years 
old  and  Adelina  9,  we  played  together  at  a  charity 
concert.  She  had  sung  "The  Last  Rose  of  Sum- 
mer," and  I  had  played  her  brother-in-law's  varia- 
tion upon  "Home,  Sweet  Home."  The  audience 
was  enthusiastic.  We  were  called  out  again  and 
again.  Then  we  came  on  the  stage  together,  and 
the  applause  increasing  I  sat  down  at  the  keyboard 
and  played  an  accompaniment  with  my  own  inter- 
polations upon  "Old  Folks  At  Home,"  which  I  had 
taught  Adelina,  and  she  sang  the  words.  Then 
they  fairly  took  the  roof  off. 

Once  during  a  sojourn  in  Paris  I  was  thrown 

[27] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

with  Christine  Nilsson.  She  was  in  the  heyday  of 
her  success  at  the  Theater  Lyrique  under  the 
patronage  of  Madame  Miolan-Carvalho.  One  day 
I  said  to  her:  "The  time  may  come  when  you  will 
be  giving  concerts."  She  was  indignant.  "Never- 
theless," I  continued,  "let  me  teach  you  a  sure  en- 
core." I  played  her  Stephen  Foster's  immortal 
ditty.  She  was  delighted.  The  sequel  was  that  it 
served  her  even  a  better  turn  than  it  had  served 
Adelina  Patti. 

I  played  and  transposed  for  the  piano  most  of 
the  melodies  of  Foster  as  they  were  published,  they 
being  first  produced  in  public  by  Christy's 
Minstrels. 

IV 

Stephen  Foster  was  the  ne'er-do-well  of  a  good 
Pennsylvania  family.  A  sister  of  his  had  married 
a  brother  of  James  Buchanan.  There  were  two 
daughters  of  this  marriage,  nieces  of  the  President, 
and  when  they  were  visiting  the  White  House  we 
had — shall  I  dare  write  it? — high  links  with  our 
nigger-minstrel  concerts  on  the  slyT^w 

Will  S.  Hays,  the  rival  of  Foster  as  a  song  writer 
and  one  of  my  reporters  on  the  Courier-Journal, 
[28] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

told  me  this  story:  "Foster,"  said  he,  "was  a  good 
deal  of  what  you  might  call  a  barroom  loafer.  He 
possessed  a  sweet  tenor  voice  before  it  was  spoiled 
by  drink,  and  was  fond  of  music,  though  technically 
he  knew  nothing  about  it.  He  had  a  German  friend 
who  when  he  died  left  him  a  musical  scrapbook,  of 
all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends  of  original  text.  There 
is  where  Foster  got  his  melodies.  When  the  scrap- 
book  gave  out  he  gave  out." 

I  took  it  as  merely  the  spleen  of  a  rival  composer. 
But  many  years  after  in  Vienna  I  heard  a  concert 
given  over  exclusively  to  the  performance  of  cer- 
tain posthumous  manuscripts  of  Schubert.  Among 
the  rest  were  selections  from  an  unfinished  opera — 
"Rosemonde,"  I  think  it  was  called — in  which  the 
whole  rhythm  and  movements  and  parts  of  the 
score  of  Old  Folks  at  Home  were  the  feature. 

It  was  something  to  have  grown  up  contempo- 
rary, as  it  were,  with  these  songs.  Many  of  them 
were  written  in  the  old  Rowan  homestead,  just  out- 
side of  Bardstown,  Ky.,  where  Louis  Philippe  lived 
and  taught,  and  for  a  s^son  Talleyrand  made  his 
abode.  The  Rowaijpr  were  notable  people.  John 
Rowan,  the  elder,  head  of  the  house,  was  a  famous 
lawyer,  who  divided  oratorical  honors  with  Henry 

[29] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Clay,  and  like  Clay,  was  a  Senator  in  Congress; 
his  son,  "young  John,"  as  he  was  called,  Stephen 
Foster's  pal,  went  as  minister  to  Naples,  and  fought 
duels,  and  was  as  Bob  Acres  wanted  to  be,  "a  devil 
of  a  fellow."  He  once  told  me  he  had  been  intimate 
with  Thackeray  when  they  were  wild  young  men  in 
Paris,  and  that  they  had  both  of  them  known  the 
woman  whom  Thackeray  had  taken  for  the  original 
of  Becky  Sharp. 

The  Foster  songs  quite  captivated  my  boyhood. 
I  could  sing  a  little,  as  well  as  play,  and  learned 
each  of  them — especially  Old  Folks  at  Home  and 
My  Old  Kentucky  Home — as  they  appeared.  Their 
contemporary  vogue  was  tremendous.  Nothing  has 
since  rivalled  the  popular  impression  they  made, 
except  perhaps  the  Arthur  Sullivan  melodies. 

Among  my  ambitions  to  be  a  great  historian, 
dramatist,  soldier  and  writer  of  romance  I  desired 
also  to  be  a  great  musician,  especially  a  great 
pianist.  The  bone-felon  did  the  business  for  this 
later.  But  all  my  life  I  have  been  able  to  thumb 
the  keyboard  at  least  for  the  children  to  dance,  and 
it  has  been  a  recourse  and  solace  sometimes  during 
intervals  of  embittered  journalism  and  unprosper- 
ous  statesmanship. 
[30] 


'MARSE  HENRY" 


Theodore  Thomas  and  I  used  to  play  duos  to- 
gether. He  was  a  master  of  the  violin  before  he 
took  to  orchestration.  We  remained  the  best  of 
friends  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

On  the  slightest  provocation,  or  none,  we  passed 
entire  nights  together.  Once  after  a  concert  he 
suddenly  exclaimed:  "Don't  you  think  Wagner  was 
a fraud?" 

A  little  surprised  even  by  one  of  his  outbreaks, 
I  said:  "Wagner  may  have  written  some  trick  music 
but  I  hardly  think  that  he  was  a  fraud." 

He  reflected  a  moment.  "Well,"  he  continued, 
"it  may  not  lie  in  my  mouth  to  say  it — and  perhaps 
I  ought  not  to  say  it — I  know  I  am  most  respon- 
sible for  the  Wagner  craze — but  I  consider  him  a 
fraud." 

He  had  just  come  from  a  long  "classic  entertain- 
ment," was  worn  out  with  travel  and  worry,  and 
meant  nothing  of  the  sort. 

After  a  very  tiresome  concert  when  he  was  rail- 
ing at  the  hard  lines  of  a  peripatetic  musician  I  said : 
"Come  with  me  and  I  will  give  you  a  soothing  quail 

[31] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  as  dry  a  glass  of  champagne  as  you  ever  had  in 
your  life." 

The  wine  was  poured  out  and  he  took  a  sip. 

"I  don't  call  that  dry  wine,"  he  crossly  said,  and 
took  another  sip.  "My  God,"  without  a  pause  he 
continued,  "isn't  that  great?" 

Of  course  he  was  impulsive,  even  impetuous.  Be- 
neath his  seeming  cold  exterior  and  admirable  self- 
control — the  discipline  of  the  master  artist — lay 
the  moods  and  tenses  of  the  musical  temperament. 
He  knew  little  or  nothing  outside  of  music  and  did 
not  care  to  learn.  I  tried  to  interest  him  in  politics. 
It  was  of  no  use.  First  he  laughed  my  suggestions 
to  scorn  and  then  swore  like  a  trooper.  German  he 
was,  through  and  through.  It  was  well  that  he 
passed  away  before  the  world  war.  Pat  Gilmore 
— "Patrick  Sarsfield,"  we  always  called  him — was  a 
born  politician,  and  if  he  had  not  been  a  musician 
he  would  have  been  a  statesman.  I  kept  the  peace 
between  him  and  Theodore  Thomas  by  an  ingeni- 
ous system  of  telling  all  kinds  of  kind  things  each 
had  said  of  the  other,  my  "repetitions"  being  pure 
inventions  of  my  own. 


[32]! 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTEENTH 

HENRY  ADAMS  AND  THE  ADAMS  FAMILY — JOHN  HAY 

AND     FRANK     MASON THE     THREE     MOUSQU- 

TAIRES    OF     CULTURE — PARIS — "THE     FRENCH- 
MAN"— THE  SOUTH  OF  FRANCE 


I  HAVE  been  of  late  reading  The  Education  of 
Henry  Adams,  and  it  recalls  many  persons 
and  incidents  belonging  to  the  period  about  which 
I  am  now  writing.  I  knew  Henry  Adams  well ; 
first  in  London,  then  in  Boston  and  finally  through- 
out his  prolonged  residence  in  Washington  City. 
He  was  an  Adams ;  very  definitely  an  Adams,  but, 
though  his  ghost  may  revisit  the  glimpses  of  the 
moon  and  chide  me  for  saying  so,  with  an  English 
"cut  to  his  jib." 

No  three  brothers  could  be  more  unlike  than 
Charles  Francis,  John  Quincy  and  Henry  Adams. 
Brooks  Adams  I  did  not  know.    They  represented 

[33] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  fourth  generation  of  the  brainiest  pedigree — 
that  is  in  continuous  line — known  to  our  family  his- 
tory. Henry  thought  he  was  a  philosopher  and 
tried  to  be  one.  He  thought  he  was  a  man  of  the 
world  and  wanted  to  be  one.  He  was,  in  spite  of 
himself,  a  provincial. 

Provincialism  is  not  necessarily  rustic,  even  sub- 
urban. There  is  no  provincial  quite  so  provincial 
as  he  who  has  passed  his  life  in  great  cities.  The 
Parisian  boulevardier  taken  away  from  the  asphalt, 
the  cockney  a  little  off  Clapham  Common  and  the 
Strand,  is  lost.  Henry  Adams  knew  his  London 
and  his  Paris,  his  Boston  and  his  Quincy — we  must 
not  forget  Quincy — well.  But  he  had  been  born, 
and  had  grown  up,  between  the  lids  of  history,  and 
for  all  his  learning  and  travel  he  never  got  very 
far  outside  them. 

In  manner  and  manners,  tone  and  cast  of  thought 
he  was  English — delightfully  English — though  he 
cultivated  the  cosmopolite.  His  house  in  the  na- 
tional capital,  facing  the  Executive  Mansion  across 
Lafayette  Square — especially  during  the  life  of  his 
wife,  an  adorable  woman,  who  made  up  in  sweet- 
ness and  tact  for  some  of  the  qualities  lacking  in 
her  husband — was  an  intellectual  and  high-bred 
[34] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

center,  a  rendezvous  for  the  best  ton  and  the  most 
accepted  people.  The  Adamses  may  be  said  to  have 
succeeded  the  Eameses  as  leaders  in  semi-social, 
semi-literary  and  semi-political  society. 

There  was  a  trio — I  used  to  call  them  the  Three 
Musketeers  of  Culture — John  Hay,  Henry  Cabot 
Lodge  and  Henry  Adams.  They  made  an  interest- 
ing and  inseparable  trinity — Caleb  Cushing,  Robert 
J.  Walker  and  Charles  Sumner  not  more  so — and 
it  was  worth  while  to  let  them  have  the  floor  and  to 
hear  them  talk;  Lodge,  cool  and  wary  as  a  politi- 
cian should  be ;  Hay,  helterskelter,  the  real  man  of 
the  world  crossed  on  a  Western  stock;  and  Adams, 
something  of  a  literatteur,  a  statesman  and  a  cynic. 

John  Randolph  Tucker,  who  when  he  was  in  Con- 
gress often  met  Henry  at  dinners  and  the  like,  said 
to  him  on  the  appearance  of  the  early  volumes  of 
his  History  of  the  United  States:  "I  am  not  dis- 
appointed, for  how  could  an  Adams  be  expected 
to  do  justice  to  a  Randolph?" 

While  he  was  writing  this  history  Adams  said  to 
me:  "There  is  an  old  villain — next  to  Andrew 
Jackson  the  greatest  villain  of  his  time — a  Ken- 
tuckian — don't  say  he  was  a  kinsman  of  yours! — • 
whose  papers,  if  he  left  any,  I  want  to  see." 

[35] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"To  whom  are  you  referring?"  I  asked  with  mock 
dignity. 

"To  John  Adair,"  he  answered. 

"Well,"  said  I,  "John  Adair  married  my  grand- 
mother's sister  and  I  can  put  you  in  the  way  of 
getting  whatever  you  require." 

I  have  spoken  of  John  Hay  as  Master  of  the 
Revels  in  the  old  Sutherland-Delmonico  days. 
Even  earlier  than  that — in  London  and  Paris — an 
intimacy  had  been  established  between  us.  He  mar- 
ried in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  and  many  years  passed  be- 
fore I  came  up  with  him  again.  One  day  in  White- 
law  Reid's  den  in  the  Tribune  Building  he  reap- 
peared, strangely  changed — no  longer  the  rosy- 
cheeked,  buoyant  boy — an  overserious,  prematurely 
old  man.  I  was  shocked,  and  when  he  had  gone 
Reid,  observing  this,  said:  "Oh,  Hay  will  come 
round  all  right.  He  is  just  now  in  one  of  his  moods. 
I  picked  him  up  in  Piccadilly  the  other  day  and  by 
sheer  force  brought  him  over." 

When  we  recall  the  story  of  Hay's  life — one 

weird  tragedy  after  another,  from  the  murder  of 

Lincoln  to  the  murder  of  McKinley,  including  the 

tragic  end  of  two  members  of  his  immediate  family 

[86] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

— there  rises  in  spite  of  the  grandeur  that  pursued 
him  a  single  exclamation:  "The  pity  of  it!" 

This  is  accentuated  by  Henry  Adams'  Educa- 
tion. Yet  the  silent  courage  with  which  Hay  met 
disaster  after  disaster  must  increase  both  the  sym- 
pathy and  the  respect  of  those  who  peruse  the 
melancholy  pages  of  that  vivid  narrative.  Toward 
the  end,  meeting  him  on  a  public  occasion,  I  said: 
"You  work  too  hard — you  are  not  looking  well." 

"I  am  dying,"  said  he. 

"Yes,"  I  replied  in  the  way  of  banter,  "you  are 
dying  of  fame  and  fortune." 

But  I  went  no  further.  He  was  in  no  mood  for 
the  old  verbal  horseplay. 

He  looked  wan  and  wizened.  Yet  there  were 
still  several  years  before  him.  When  he  came  from 
Mannheim  to  Paris  it  was  clear  that  the  end  was 
nigh.  I  did  not  see  him — he  was  too  ill  to  see  any 
one — but  Frank  Mason  kept  me  advised  from  day 
to  day,  and  when,  a  month  or  two  later,  having 
reached  home,  the  news  came  to  us  that  he  was  dead 
we  were  nowise  surprised,  and  almost  consoled  by 
the  thought  that  rest  had  come  at  last. 

Frank  Mason  and  his  wife — "the  Masons,"  they 
were  commonly  called,  for  Mrs.  Mason  made  a 

[37] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

wondrous  second  to  her  husband — were  from  Cleve- 
land, Ohio,  she  a  daughter  of  Judge  Birchard — 
Jennie  Birchard — he  a  rising  young  journalist 
caught  in  the  late  seventies  by  the  glitter  of  a  for- 
eign appointment.  They  ran  the  gamut  of  the  con- 
sular service,  beginning  with  Basel  and  Marseilles 
and  ending  with  Frankfurt,  Berlin  and  Paris. 
Wherever  they  were  their  house  was  a  very  home 
— a  kind  of  Yankee  shrine — of  visiting  Americans 
and  militant  Americanism. 

Years  before  he  was  made  consul  general — in 
point  of  fact  when  he  was  plain  consul  at  Marseilles 
— he  ran  over  to  Paris  for  a  lark.  One  day  he  said 
to  me,  "A  rich  old  hayseed  uncle  of  mine  has  come 
to  town.  He  has  money  to  burn  and  he  wants  to 
meet  you.  I  have  arranged  for  us  to  dine  with  him 
at  the  Anglaise  to-night  and  we  are  to  order  the 
dinner — carte  blanche."  The  rich  old  uncle  to  whom 
I  was  presented  did  not  have  the  appearance  of  a 
hayseed.  On  the  contrary  he  was  a  most  distin- 
guished-looking old  gentleman.  The  dinner  we 
ordered  was  "stunning" — especially  the  wines. 
When  the  bill  was  presented  our  host  scanned  it 
carefully,  scrutinizing  each  item  and  making  his 
own  addition,  altogether  "like  a  thoroughbred." 
[38] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Frank  and  I  watched  him  not  without  a  bit  of 
anxiety  mixed  with  contrition.  When  he  had  paid 
the  score  he  said  with  a  smile:  "That  was  rather  a 
steep  bill,  but  we  have  had  rather  a  good  dinner, 
and  now,  if  you  boys  know  of  as  good  a  dance  hall 
we'll  go  there  and  I'll  buy  the  outfit." 

ii 

First  and  last  I  have  lived  much  in  the  erstwhile 
gay  capital  of  France.  It  was  gayest  when  the 
Duke  de  Morny  flourished  as  King  of  the  Bourse. 
He  was  reputed  the  Emperor's  natural  half- 
brother.  The  breakdown  of  the  Mexican  adven- 
ture, which  was  mostly  his,  contributed  not  a  little 
to  the  final  Napoleonic  fall.  He  died  of  dissipation 
and  disappointment,  and  under  the  pseudonym  of 
the  Duke  de  Morra,  Daudet  celebrated  him  in 
"The  Nabob." 

De  Morny  did  not  live  to  see  the  tumble  of  the 
house  of  cards  he  had  built.  Next  after  I  saw  Paris 
it  was  a  pitiful  wreck  indeed ;  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and 
the  Tuileries  in  flames ;  the  Column  gone  from  the 
Place  Vendome;  but  later  the  rise  of  the  Third 
Republic  saw  the  revival  of  the  unquenchable  spirit 
of  the  irrepressible  French. 

[39] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Nevertheless  I  should  scarcely  be  taken  for  a 
Parisian.  Once,  when  wandering  aimlessly,  as  one 
so  often  does  through  the  Paris  streets,  one  of  the 
touts  hanging  round  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix  to  catch 
the  unwary  stranger  being  a  little  more  importu- 
nate than  usual,  I  ordered  him  to  go  about  his  busi- 
ness. 

"This  is  my  business,"  he  impudently  answered. 

"Get  away,  I  tell  you!"  I  thundered,  "I  am  a 
Parisian  myself!" 

He  drew  a  little  out  of  reach  of  the  umbrella  I 
held  in  my  hand,  and  with  a  drawl  of  supreme  and 
very  American  contempt,  exclaimed,  "Well,  you 
don't  look  it,"  and  scampered  off. 

Paris,  however,  is  not  all  of  France.  Sometimes 
I  have  thought  not  the  best  part  of  it.  There  is  the 
south  of  France,  with  Avignon,  the  heart  of  Pro- 
vence, seat  of  the  French  papacy  six  hundred  years 
ago,  the  metropolis  of  Christendom  before  the  Midi 
was  a  region — Paris  yet  a  village,  and  Rome  strug- 
gling out  of  the  debris  of  the  ages — with  Aries  and 
Nimes,  and,  above  all,  Tarascon,  the  home  of  the 
immortal  Tartarin,  for  next-door  neighbors.  They 
are  all  hard  by  Marseilles.  But  Avignon  ever  most 
[40] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

caught  my  fancy,  for  there  the  nights  seem  peopled 
with  the  ghosts  of  warriors  and  cardinals,  and  there 
on  festal  mornings  the  spirits  of  Petrarch  and  his 
Laura  walk  abroad,  the  ramparts,  which  bade  de- 
fiance to  Goth  and  Vandal  and  Saracen  hordes, 
now  giving  shelter  to  bats  and  owls,  but  the  atmos- 
phere laden  with  legend 

" .  .  .  tasting  of  Flora  and  the  country  green, 
Dance  and  Provencal  song  and  sun-burnt  mirth" 

Something  too  much  of  this!  Let  me  not  yield 
to  the  spell  of  the  picturesque.  To  recur  to  mat- 
ters of  fact  and  get  down  to  prose  and  the  times  we 
live  in  let  us  halt  a  moment  on  this  southerly 
journey  and  have  a  look  in  upon  Lyons,  the  in- 
dustrial capital  of  France,  which  is  directly  on  the 
way. 

The  idiosyncrasy  of  Lyons  is  silk.  There  are  two 
schools  of  introduction  in  the  art  of  silk  weaving, 
one  of  them  free  to  any  lad  in  the  city,  the  other  re- 
quiring a  trifle  of  matriculation.  The  first  of  these 
witnesses  the  whole  process  of  fabrication  from  the 
reeling  of  threads  to  the  finishing  of  dress  goods, 

[41] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  the  loom  painting  of  pictures.  It  is  most  in- 
teresting of  course,  the  painstaking  its  most  obvious 
feature,  the  individual  weaver  living  with  his 
family  upon  a  wage  representing  the  cost  of  the 
barest  necessities  of  life.  Again,  and  ever  and  ever 
again,  the  inequalities  of  fortune!  Where  will  it 
end? 

The  world  has  tried  revolution  and  it  has  tried 
anarchy.  Always  the  survival  of  the  strong,  nick- 
named by  Spencer  and  his  ilk  the  "fittest."  Ten 
thousand  heads  were  chopped  off  during  the  Terror 
in  France  to  make  room  for  whom?  Not  for  the 
many,  but  the  few ;  though  it  must  be  allowed  that 
in  some  ways  the  conditions  were  improved. 

Yet  here  after  a  hundred  years,  here  in  Lyons, 
faithful,  intelligent  men  struggle  for  sixty,  for 
forty  cents  a  day,  with  never  a  hope  beyond !  What 
is  to  be  done  about  it?  Suppose  the  wealth  of  the 
universe  were  divided  per  capita,  how  long  would 
it  remain  out  of  the  clutches  of  the  Napoleons  of 
finance,  only  a  percentage  of  whom  find  ultimately 
their  Waterloo,  little  to  the  profit  of  the  poor  who 
spin  and  delve,  who  fight  and  die,  in  the  Grand 
Army  of  the  Wretched! 
[42] 


'MARSE  HENRY" 


m 


We  read  a  deal  that  is  amusing  about  the 
southerly  Frenchman.  He  is  indeed  sui  generis. 
Some  five  and  twenty  years  ago  there  appeared  in 
Louisville  a  dapper  gentleman,  who  declared  him- 
self a  Marseillais,  and  who  subsequently  came  to  be 
known  variously  as  The  Major  and  The  French- 
man. I  shall  not  mention  him  otherwise  in  this 
veracious  chronicle,  but,  looking  through  the  city 
directory  of  Marseilles  I  found  an  entire  page  de- 
voted to  his  name,  though  all  the  entries  may  not 
have  been  members  of  his  family.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  he  was  a  Marseillais. 

Wandering  through  the  streets  of  the  old  city, 
now  in  a  cafe  of  La  Cannebiere  and  now  along  a 
quay  of  the  Old  Port,  his  ghost  has  often  crossed 
my  path  and  dogged  my  footsteps,  though  he  has 
lain  in  his  grave  this  many  a  day.  I  grew  to  know 
him  very  well,  to  be  first  amused  by  him,  then  to  be 
interested,  and  in  the  end  to  entertain  an  affection 
for  him. 

The  Major  was  a  delightful  composite  of  Tar- 
tarin  of  Tarascon  and  the  Brigadier  Gerard,  with 
a  dash  of  the  Count  of  Monte  Cristo;  for  when  he 

[43] 


"MAKSU  HJUJMKY " 

was  flush — which  by  some  odd  coincidence  hap- 
pened exactly  four  times  a  year — he  was  as  liberal 
a  spendthrift  as  one  could  wish  to  meet  anywhere 
between  the  little  principality  of  Monaco  and  the 
headwaters  of  the  Nile;  transparent  as  a  child; 
idiosyncratic  to  a  degree. 

I  understand  Marseilles  better  and  it  has  always 
seemed  nearer  to  me  since  he  was  born  there  and 
lived  there  when  a  boy,  and,  I  much  fear  me,  was 
driven  away,  the  scapegrace  of  excellent  and 
wealthy  people;  not,  I  feel  sure,  for  any  offense 
that  touched  the  essential  parts  of  his  manhood.  A 
gentler,  a  more  upright  and  harmless  creature  I 
never  knew  in  all  my  life. 

I  very  well  recall  when  he  first  arrived  in  the 
Kentucky  metropolis.  His  attire  and  raiment  were 
faultless.  He  wore  a  rose  in  his  coat,  he  carried  a 
delicate  cane,  and  a  most  beautiful  woman  hung 
upon  his  arm.  She  was  his  wife.  It  was  a  circum- 
stance connected  with  this  lady  which  led  to  the 
after  intimacy  between  him  and  me.  She  fell  dan- 
gerously ill.  I  had  casually  met  her  husband  as  an 
all-round  man-about-town,  and  by  this  token,  seek- 
ing sympathy  on  lines  of  least  resistance,  he  came 
to  me  with  his  sorrow. 
[44] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  have  never  seen  grief  more  real  and  fervid.  He 
swore,  on  his  knees  and  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  that 
if  she  recovered,  if  God  would  give  her  back  to  him, 
he  would  never  again  touch  a  card;  for  gambling 
was  his  passion,  and  even  among  amateurs  he  would 
have  been  accounted  the  softest  of  soft  things.  His 
prayer  was  answered,  she  did  recover,  and  he  pro- 
ceeded to  fulfill  his  vow. 

But  what  was  he  to  do?  He  had  been  taught, 
or  at  least  he  had  learned,  to  do  nothing,  not  even 
to  play  poker!  I  suggested  that  as  running  a 
restaurant  was  a  French  prerogative  and  that  as 
he  knew  less  about  cooking  than  about  anything  else 
— we  had  had  a  contest  or  two  over  the  mysteries  of 
a  pair  of  charing  dishes — and  as  there  was  not  a 
really  good  eating  place  in  Louisville,  he  should  set 
up  a  restaurant.  It  was  said  rather  in  jest  than  in 
earnest ;  but  I  was  prepared  to  lend*  him  the  money. 
The  next  thing  I  knew,  and  without  asking  for  a 
dollar,  he  had  opened  The  Brunswick. 

In  those  days  I  saw  the  Courier- Journal  to  press, 
turning  night  into  day,  and  during  a  dozen  years  I 
took  my  twelve  o'clock  supper  there.  It  was  thus 
and  from  these  beginnings  that  the  casual  acquaint- 
ance between  us  ripened  into  intimacy,  and  that  I 

[45] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

gradually  came  into  a  knowledge  of  the  reserves  be- 
hind The  Major's  buoyant  optimism  and  occasional 
gasconnade. 

He  ate  and  drank  sparingly ;  but  he  was  not  proof 
against  the  seduction  of  good  company,  and  he  had 
plenty  of  it,  from  William  Preston  to  Joseph  Jef- 
ferson, with  such  side  lights  as  Stoddard  Johnston, 
Boyd  Winchester,  Isaac  Caldwell  and  Proctor 
Knott,  of  the  Home  Guard — very  nearly  all  the 
celebrities  of  the  day  among  the  outsiders — myself 
the  humble  witness  and  chronicler.  He  secured  an 
excellent  chef,  and  of  course  we  lived  exceedingly 
well. 

The  Major's  most  obvious  peculiarity  was  that 
he  knew  everything  and  had  been  everywhere.  If 
pirates  were  mentioned  he  flowered  out  at  once  into 
an  adventure  upon  the  sea ;  if  bandits,  on  the  land. 
If  it  was  Wall  Street  he  had  a  reminiscence  and  a 
scheme;  if  gambling,  a  hard-luck  story  and  a  sys- 
tem. There  was  no  quarter  of  the  globe  of  which 
he  had  not  been  an  inhabitant. 

Once  the  timbered  riches  of  Africa  being  men- 
tioned, at  once  the  Major  gave  us  a  most  graphic 
account  of  how  "the  old  house" — for  thus  he  desig- 
nated some  commercial  establishment,  which  either 
[46] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

had  no  existence  or  which  he  had  some  reason  for 
not  more  particularly  indicating — had  sent  him  in 
charge  of  a  rosewood  saw  mill  on  the  Ganges,  and, 
after  many  ups  and  downs,  of  how  the  floods  had 
come  and  swept  the  plant  away ;  and  Rudolph  Fink, 
who  was  of  the  party,  immediately  said,  "I  can 
attest  the  truth  of  The  Major's  story,  hecause  my 
brother  Albert  and  I  were  in  charge  of  some  fishing 
camps  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ganges  at  the  exact  date 
of  the  floods,  and  we  caught  many  of  those  rose- 
wood logs  in  our  nets  as  they  floated  out  to  sea." 

Augustine's  Terrapin  came  to  be  for  a  while  the 
rage  in  Philadelphia,  and  even  got  as  far  as  New 
lYork  and  Washington,  and  straightway,  The  Ma- 
jor declared  he  could  and  would  make  Augustine 
and  his  terrapin  look  "like  a  monkey."  He  pro- 
posed to  give  a  dinner. 

There  were  great  preparations  and  expectancy. 
None  of  us  ate  much  at  luncheon  that  day.  At  the 
appointed  hour,  we  assembled  at  The  Brunswick. 
I  will  dismiss  the  decorations  and  the  preludes  ex- 
cept to  say  that  they  were  Parisian.  After  a  while 
in  full  regalia  The  Major  appeared,  a  train  of  ser- 
vants following  with  a  silver  tureen.  The  lid  was 
lifted. 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Voilal"  says  he. 

The  vision  disclosed  to  our  startled  eyes  was  an 
ocean  that  looked  like  bean  soup  flecked  by  a  few 
strands  of  black  crape ! 

The  explosion  duly  arrived  from  the  assembled 
gourmets,  I,  myself,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  leading  the 
rebellion. 

"I  put  seeks  terrapin  in  zat  soup!"  exclaimed 
The  Frenchman,  quite  losing  his  usual  good  Eng- 
lish in  his  excitement. 

We  reproached  him.  We  denounced  him.  He 
was  driven  from  the  field.  But  he  bore  us  no  malice. 
Ten  days  later  he  invited  us  again,  and  this  time 
Sam  Ward  himself  could  have  found  no  fault  with 
the  terrapin. 

Next  afternoon,  when  I  knew  The  Major  was 
asleep,  I  slipped  back  into  the  kitchen  and  said  to 
Louis  Gamier,  the  chef:  "Is  there  any  of  that 
terrapin  left  over  from  last  night?" 

All  unconscious  of  his  treason  Louis  took  me  into 
the  pantry  and  triumphantly  showed  me  three  jars 
bearing  the  Augustine  label  and  the  Philadelphia 
express  tags! 

On  another  occasion  a  friend  of  The  Major's, 
passing  The  Brunswick  and  observing  some  dia- 
[48] 


HENRY    WOODFIN    GRADY 
OXE    OF    MR.    WATTERSOX'S 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

mond-back  shells  in  the  window  said,  "Major,  have 
you  any  real  live  terrapins?" 

"Live !"  cried  The  Frenchman.  "Only  this  morn- 
ing I  open  the  ice  box  and  they  were  all  dancing 
the  cancan." 

"Major,"  persisted  the  friend,  "I'll  go  you  a 
bottle  of  Veuve  Cliquot,  you  cannot  show  me  an 
actual  living  terrapin." 

"What  do  you  take  me  for — confidence  man?" 
The  Major  retorted.  "How  you  expect  an  old 
sport  like  me  to  bet  upon  a  certainty?" 

"Never  mind  your  ethics.  The  wager  is  drink, 
not  money.    In  any  event  we  shall  have  the  wine." 

"Oh,  well,"  says  The  Frenchman,  with  a  shrug 
and  a  droll  grimace,  "if  you  insist  on  paying  for  a 
bottle  of  wine  come  with  me." 

He  took  a  lighted  candle,  and  together  they  went 
back  to  the  ice  box.  It  was  literally  filled  with 
diamond  backs,  and  my  friend  thought  he  was  gone 
for  sure. 

"La!"  says  The  Major  with  triumph,  rummag- 
ing among  the  mass  of  shells  with  his  cane  as  he 
held  the  candle  aloft. 

"But,"  says  my  friend,  ready  to  surrender,  yet 

[49] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

taking  a  last  chance,  "you  told  me  they  were 
dancing  the  cancan !" 

The  Major  picked  up  a  terrapin  and  turned  it 
over  in  his  hand.  Quite  numb  and  frozen,  the 
animal  within  made  no  sign.  Then  he  stirred  the 
shells  about  in  the  box  with  his  cane.  Still  not  a 
show  of  life.  Of  a  sudden  he  stopped,  reflected  a 
moment,  then  looked  at  his  watch. 

"Ah,"  he  murmured.  "I  quite  forget.  The  terra- 
pin, they  are  asleep.  It  is  ten-thirty,  and  the  terra- 
pin he  regularly  go  to  sleep  at  ten  o'clock  by  the 
watch  every  night."  And  without  another  word  he 
reached  for  the  Veuve  Cliquot! 

For  all  his  volubility  in  matters  of  romance  and 
sentiment  The  Ma j  or  was  exceeding  reticent  about 
his  immediate  self  and  his  own  affairs.  His  legends 
referred  to  the  distant  of  time  and  place.  A  certain 
dignity  could  not  be  denied  him,  and,  on  occasion, 
a  proper  reserve ;  he  rarely  mentioned  his  business 
— though  he  worked  like  a  slave,  and  could  not  have 
been  making  much  or  any  profit — so  that  there  rose 
the  query  how  he  contrived  to  make  both  ends  meet. 
Little  by  little  I  came  into  the  knowledge  that  there 
was  a  money  supply  from  somewhere;  finally,  it 
matters  not  how,  that  he  had  an  annuity  of  forty 
[50] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

thousand  francs,  paid  in  quarterly  installments  of 
ten  thousand  francs  each. 

Occasionally  he  mentioned  "the  Old  House,"  and 
in  relating  the  famous  Sophonisba  episode  late  at 
night,  and  only  in  the  very  fastnesses  of  the  wine 
cellar,  as  it  were,  at  the  most  lachrymose  passage 
he  spoke  of  'TOncle  Celestin,"  with  the  deepest 
feeling. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  The  Frenchman  tell  that 
story  about  Sophonisba?"  Doctor  Stoic,  whom  on 
account  of  his  affectation  of  insensibility  we  were 
wont  to  call  Old  Adamant,  once  asked  me.  "Well, 
sir,  the  other  night  he  told  it  to  me,  and  he  was 
drunk,  and  he  cried,  sir;  and  I  was  drunk,  and  I 
cried  too!" 

I  had  known  The  Frenchman  now  ten  or  a  dozen 
years.  That  he  came  from  Marseilles,  that  he  had 
served  on  the  Confederate  side  in  the  Trans- 
Mississippi,  that  he  possessed  an  annuity,  that  he 
must  have  been  well-born  and  reared,  that  he  was 
simple,  yet  canny,  and  in  his  money  dealings  scru- 
pulously honest — was  all  I  could  be  sure  of.  What 
had  he  done  to  be  ashamed  about  or  wish  to  con- 
ceal? In  what  was  he  a  black  sheep,  for  that  he 
had  been  one  seemed  certain?    Had  the  beautiful 

[51] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

woman,  his  wife — a  tireless  church  and  charity 
worker,  who  lived  the  life  of  a  recluse  and  a  saint — \ 
had  she  reclaimed  him  from  his  former  self?  I 
knew  that  she  had  been  the  immediate  occasion  of 
his  turning  over  a  new  leaf.  But  before  her  time 
what  had  he  been,  what  had  he  done? 

Late  one  night,  when  the  rain  was  falling  and  the 
streets  were  empty,  I  entered  The  Brunswick.  It 
was  empty  too.  In  the  farthest  corner  of  the  little 
dining  room  The  Major,  his  face  buried  in  his 
hands,  laid  upon  the  table  in  front  of  him,  sat 
silently  weeping.  He  did  not  observe  my  entrance 
and  I  seated  myself  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
table.  Presently  he  looked  up,  and  seeing  me,  with- 
out a  word  passed  me  a  letter  which,  all  blistered 
with  tears,  had  brought  him  to  this  distressful  state. 
It  was  a  formal  French  burial  summons,  with  its 
long  list  of  family  names — his  among  the  rest — 
the  envelope,  addressed  in  a  lady's  hand — his  sis- 
ter's, the  wife  of  a  nobleman  in  high  military  com- 
mand— the  postmark  "Lyon."  Uncle  Celestin  was 
dead. 

Thereafter  The  Frenchman  told  me  much  which 
I  may  not  recall  and  must  not  repeat ;  for,  included 
in  that  funeral  list  were  some  of  the  best  names  in 
[52] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

France,  Uncle  Celestin  himself  not  the  least  of 
them. 

At  last  he  died,  and  as  mysteriously  as  he  had 
come  his  body  was  taken  away,  nobody  knew  when, 
nobody  where,  and  with  it  went  the  beautiful 
woman,  his  wife,  of  whom  from  that  day  to  this  I 
have  never  heard  a  word. 


[53] 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTEENTH 

STILL  THE  GAY  CAPITAL  OF  FRANCE — ITS  ENVIRONS 
— WALEWSKA  AND  DE  MORNY — THACKERAY  IN 
PARIS — A  "PENSION"  ADVENTURE. 


ACH  of  the  generations  thinks  itself  com- 
monplace. Familiarity  breeds  equally  indif- 
ference and  contempt.  Yet  no  age  of  the  world 
has  witnessed  so  much  of  the  drama  of  life — of  the 
romantic  and  picturesque — as  the  age  we  live  in. 
The  years  betwixt  Agincourt  and  Waterloo  were 
not  more  delightfully  tragic  than  the  years  between 
Serajevo  and  Senlis. 

The  gay  capital  of  France  remains  the  center  of 
the  stage  and  retains  the  interest  of  the  onlooking 
universe.  All  roads  lead  to  Paris  as  all  roads  led  to 
Rome.  In  Dickens'  day  "a  tale  of  two  cities"  could 
only  mean  London  and  Paris  then,  and  ever  so  un- 
alike. To  be  brought  to  date  the  title  would  have 
now  to  read  "three,"  or  even  "four,"  cities,  New 
[54] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

York  and  Chicago  putting  in  their  claims  for 
mundane  recognition. 

I  have  been  not  only  something  of  a  traveller,  but 
a  diligent  student  of  history  and  a  voracious  novel 
reader,  and,  once-in-a-while,  I  get  my  history  and 
my  fiction  mixed.  This  has  been  especially  the  case 
when  the  hum-drum  of  the  Boulevards  has  driven 
me  from  the  fascinations  of  the  Beau  Quartier  into 
the  by-ways  of  the  Marais  and  the  fastnesses  of 
what  was  once  the  Latin  Quarter.  More  than  fifty 
years  of  intimacy  have  enabled  me  to  learn  many 
things  not  commonly  known,  among  them  that 
Paris  is  the  most  orderly  and  moral  city  in  the 
world,  except  when,  on  rare  and  brief  occasions,  it 
has  been  stirred  to  its  depths. 

I  have  crossed  the  ocean  many  times — have  lived, 
not  sojourned,  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  and,  as  I 
shall  never  see  the  other  side  again — do  not  want  to 
see  it  in  its  time  of  sorrow  and  garb  of  mourning — 
I  may  be  forgiven  a  retrospective  pause  in  this 
egotistic  chronicle.  Or,  shall  I  not  say,  a  word  or 
two  of  affectionate  retrogression,  though  perchance 
it  leads  me  after  the  manner  of  Silas  Wegg  to  drop 
into  poetry  and  take  a  turn  with  a  few  ghosts  into 
certain  of  their  haunts,  when  you,  dear  sir,   or 

[55] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

madame,  or  miss,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  I  were 
living  that  "other  life,"  whereof  we  remember  so 
little  that  we  cannot  recall  who  we  were,  or  what 
name  we  went  by,  howbeit  now-and-then  we  get  a 
glimpse  in  dreams,  or  a  "hunch"  from  the  world  of 
spirits,  or  spirts-and-water,  which  makes  us  fancy 
we  might  have  been  Julius  Caesar,  or  Cleopatra — 
as  maybe  we  were! — or  at  least  Joan  of  Arc,  or 
Jean  Valjean! 

ii 

Let  me  repeat  that  upon  no  spot  of  earth  has  the 
fable  we  call  existence  had  so  rare  a  setting  and 
rung  up  its  curtain  upon  such  a  succession  of  per- 
formances; has  so  concentrated  human  attention 
upon  mundane  affairs ;  has  called  such  a  muster  roll 
of  stage  favorites;  has  contributed  to  romance  so 
many  heroes  and  heroines,  to  history  so  many  signal 
episodes  and  personal  exploits,  to  philosophy  so 
much  to  kindle  the  craving  for  vital  knowledge,  to 
stir  sympathy  and  to  awaken  reflection. 

Greece  and  Rome  seem  but  myths  of  an  Age  of 

Fable.    They  live  for  us  as  pictures  live,  as  statues 

live.     What  was  it  I  was  saying  about  statues — 

that  they  all  look  alike  to  me?    There  are  too  many 

[56] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  them.  They  bring  the  ancients  down  to  us  in 
marble  and  bronze,  not  in  flesh  and  blood.  We  do 
not  really  laugh  with  Terence  and  Horace,  nor  weep 
with  .ZEschylus  and  Homer.  The  very  nomencla- 
ture has  a  ticket  air  like  tags  on  a  collection  of  cu- 
rios in  an  auction  room,  droning  the  dull  iteration 
of  a  catalogue.  There  is  as  little  to  awaken  and  in- 
spire in  the  system  of  religion  and  ethics  of  the 
pagan  world  they  lived  in  as  in  the  eyes  of  the  stone 
effigies  that  stare  blankly  upon  us  in  the  British 
Museum,  the  Uffizi  and  the  Louvre. 

We  walk  the  streets  of  the  Eternal  City  with 
wonderment,  not  with  pity,  the  human  side  quite 
lost  in  the  archaic.  What  is  Ceesar  to  us,  or  we  to 
Ca?sar?  Jove's  thunder  no  longer  terrifies,  and  we 
look  elsewhere  than  the  Medici  Venus  for  the  lights 
o'  love. 

Not  so  with  Paris.  There  the  unbroken  line  of 
five  hundred  years — semi-modern  years,  marking  a 
longer  period  than  we  commonly  ascribe  to  Athens 
or  Rome — beginning  with  the  exit  of  this  our  own 
world  from  the  dark  ages  into  the  partial  light  of 
the  middle  ages,  and  continuing  thence  through  the 
struggle  of  man  toward  achievement — tells  us  a  tale 
more  consecutive  and  thrilling,  more  varied  and  in- 

[57] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

structive,  than  may  be  found  in  all  the  pages  of  all 
the  chroniclers  and  poets  of  the  civilizations  which 
vibrated  between  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Tiber,  to 
yield  at  last  to  triumphant  Barbarism  swooping 
down  from  Tyrol  crag  and  Alpine  height,  from  the 
fastnesses  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Rhone,  to  swallow 
luxury  and  culture.  Refinement  had  done  its  per- 
fect work.  It  had  emasculated  man  and  unsexed 
woman  and  brought  her  to  the  front  as  a  political 
force,  even  as  it  is  trying  to  do  now. 

The  Paris  of  Balzac  and  Dumas,  of  De  Musset 
and  Hugo — even  of  Thackeray — could  still  be  seen 
when  I  first  went  there.  Though  our  age  is  as  full 
of  all  that  makes  for  the  future  of  poetry  and 
romance,  it  does  not  contemporaneously  lend  itself 
to  sentimental  abstraction.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  sepa- 
rate fact  and  fiction  here;  to  decide  between  the 
true  and  the  false;  to  pluck  from  the  haze  with 
which  time  has  enveloped  them,  and  to  distinguish 
the  puppets  of  actual  flesh  and  blood  who  lived  and 
moved  and  had  their  being,  and  the  phantoms  of 
imagination  called  into  life  and  given  each  its  local 
habitation  and  its  name  by  the  poet's  pen  working 
its  immemorial  spell  upon  the  reader's  credulity. 

To  me  D'Artagnan  is  rather  more  vital  than 
[58] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Richelieu.  Hugo's  imps  and  Balzac's  bullies  dance 
down  the  stage  and  shut  from  the  view  the  tax-col- 
lectors and  the  court  favorites.  The  mousquetaires 
crowd  the  field  marshals  off  the  scene.  There  is 
something  real  in  Quasimodo,  in  Cassar  de  Birot- 
teau,  in  Robert  Macaire,  something  mythical  in 
Mazarin,  in  the  Regent  and  in  Jean  Lass.  Even 
here,  in  faraway  Kentucky,  I  can  shut  my  eyes  and 
see  the  Lady  of  Dreams  as  plainly  as  if  she  were 
coming  out  of  the  Bristol  or  the  Ritz  to  step  into 
her  automobile,  while  the  Grande  Mademoiselle  is 
merely  a  cloud  of  clothes  and  words  that  for  me 
mean  nothing  at  all. 

I  once  passed  a  week,  day  by  day,  roaming  through 
the  Musee  Carnavalet.  Madame  de  Sevigne  had 
an  apartment  and  held  her  salon  there  for  nearly 
twenty  years.  Hard  by  is  the  house  where  the 
Marquise  de  Brinvilliers — a  gentle,  blue-eyed  thing 
they  tell  us — a  poor,  insane  creature  she  must  have 
been — disseminated  poison  and  death,  and,  just 
across  and  beyond  the  Place  des  Vosges,  the  Hotel 
de  Sens,  whither  Queen  Margot  took  her  doll-rags 
and  did  her  spriting  after  she  and  Henri  Quatre 
had  agreed  no  longer  to  slide  down  the  same  cellar 
door.    There  is  in  the  Museum  a  death-mask,  col- 

[59] 


€ 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ored  and  exceeding  life-like,  taken  the  day  after 
Ravaillac  delivered  the  finishing  knife-thrust  in  the 
Rue  de  Ferronnerie,  which  represents  the  Bearnais 
as  anything  but  a  tamer  of  hearts.  He  was  a 
fighter,  however,  from  Wayback,  and  I  dare  say 
Dumas'  narrative  is  quite  as  authentic  as  any. 

One  can  scarce  wonder  that  men  like  Hugo  and 
Balzac  chose  this  quarter  of  the  town  to  live  in — 
and  Rachael,  too! — it  having  given  such  frequent 
shelter  to  so  many  of  their  fantastic  creations,  hav- 
ing been  the  real  abode  of  a  train  of  gallants  and 
bravos,  of  saints  and  harlots  from  the  days  of  Diane 
de  Poitiers  to  the  days  of  Pompadour  and  du 
Barry,  and  of  statesmen  and  prelates  likewise  from 
Sully  to  JNTecker,  from  Colbert  to  Turgot. 

in 

I  speak  of  the  Marais  as  I  might  speak  of  Madi- 
son Square,  or  Hyde  Park — as  a  well-known  local 
section — yet  how  few  Americans  who  have  gone  to 
Paris  have  ever  heard  of  it.  It  is  in  the  eastern  di- 
vision of  the  town.  One  finds  it  a  curious  circum- 
stance that  so  many  if  not  most  of  the  great  cities 
[60] 


"MAR8E  HENRY" 

somehow  started  with  the  rising,  gradually  to  mi- 
grate toward  the  setting  sun. 

When  I  first  wandered  about  Paris  there  was  lit- 
tle west  of  the  Arch  of  Stars  except  groves  and 
meadows.  Neuilly  and  Passy  were  distant  villages. 
Auteuil  was  a  safe  retreat  for  lovers  and  debtors, 
with  comic  opera  villas  nestled  in  high-walled  gar- 
dens. To  Auteuil  Armand  Duval  and  his  Camille 
hied  away  for  their  short-lived  idyl.  In  those  days 
there  was  a  lovely  lane  called  Marguerite  Gautier, 
with  a  dovecote  pointed  out  as  the  very  "rustic 
dwelling"  so  pathetically  sung  in  Verdi's  tuneful 
score  and  tenderly  described  in  the  original  Dumas 
text.  The  Boulevard  Montmorenci  long  ago 
plowed  the  shrines  of  romance  out  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  living,  and  a  part  of  the  Longchamps  race- 
course occupies  the  spot  whither  impecunious  poets 
and  adventure-seeking  wives  repaired  to  escape  the 
insistence  of  cruel  bailiffs  and  the  spies  of  suspicious 
and  monotonous  husbands. 

Tempus  f ugit !  I  used  to  read  Thackeray's  Paris 
Sketches  with  a  kind  of  awe.  The  Thirties  and  the 
Forties,  reincarnated  and  inspired  by  his  glowing 
spirit,  seemed  clad  in  translucent  garments,  like  the 
figures  in  the  Nibelungenlied,  weird,  remote,  glori- 

[61] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

fied.  I  once  lived  in  the  street  "for  which  no  rhyme 
our  language  yields,"  next  door  to  a  pastry  shop 
that  claimed  to  have  furnished  the  mise  en  scene 
for  the  "Ballad  of  Bouillabaisse,"  and  I  often  fol- 
lowed the  trail  of  Louis  Dominic  Cartouche  "down 
that  lonely  and  crooked  byway  that,  setting  forth 
from  a  palace  yard,  led  finally  to  the  rear  gate  of 
a  den  of  thieves."  Ah,  well-a-day!  I  have  known 
my  Paris  now  twice  as  long  as  Thackeray  knew  his 
Paris,  and  my  Paris  has  been  as  interesting  as  his 
Paris,  for  it  includes  the  Empire,  the  Siege  and  the 
Republic. 

I  knew  and  sat  for  months  at  table  with  Comtesse 
Walewska,  widow  of  the  bastard  son  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte.  The  Duke  de  Morny  was  rather  a  per- 
son in  his  way  and  Gambetta  was  no  slouch,  as 
Titmarsh  would  himself  agree.  I  knew  them  both. 
The  Mexican  scheme,  which  was  going  to  make 
every  Frenchman  rich,  was  even  more  picturesque 
and  tragical  than  the  Mississippi  bubble.  There 
were  lively  times  round  about  the  last  of  the  Sixties 
and  the  early  Seventies.  The  Terror  lasted  longer, 
but  it  was  not  much  more  lurid  than  the  Commune ; 
the  Hotel  de  Ville  and  the  Tuileries  in  flames,  the 
column  gone  from  the  Place  Vendome,  when  I  got 
[62] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

there  just  after  the  siege.  The  regions  of  the  beau- 
tiful Opera  House  and  of  the  venerable  Notre 
Dame  they  told  me  had  been  but  yesterday  run- 
ning streams  of  blood.  At  the  corner  of  the  Rue 
de  la  Paix  and  the  Rue  Dannou  (they  called  it 
then  the  Rue  St.  Augustine)  thirty  men,  women, 
and  boys  were  one  forenoon  stood  against  the  wall 
and  shot,  volley  upon  volley,  to  death.  In  the 
Sacristy  of  the  Cathedral  over  against  the  Morgue 
and  the  Hotel  Dieu,  they  exhibit  the  gore-stained 
vestments  of  three  archbishops  of  Paris  murdered 
within  as  many  decades. 


IV 


Thackeray  came  to  Paris  when  a  very  young 
man.  He  was  for  painting  pictures,  not  for  writ- 
ing books,  and  he  retained  his  artistic  yearnings  if 
not  ambitions  long  after  he  had  become  a  great  and 
famous  man  of  letters.  It  was  in  Paris  that  he 
married  his  wife,  and  in  Paris  that  the  melancholy 
finale  came  to  pass ;  one  of  the  most  heartbreaking 
chapters  in  literary  history. 

His  little  girls  lived  here  with  their  grandparents. 
The  elder  of  them  relates  how  she  was  once  taken 

[63] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

up  some  flights  of  stairs  by  the  Countess  X  to  the 
apartment  of  a  frail  young  man  to  whom  the  Coun- 
tess was  carrying  a  basket  of  fruit;  and  how  the 
frail  young  man  insisted,  against  the  protest  of  the 
Countess,  upon  sitting  at  the  piano  and  playing; 
and  of  how  they  came  out  again,  the  eyes  of  the 
Countess  streaming  with  tears,  and  of  her  saying, 
as  they  drove  away,  "Never,  never  forget,  my  child, 
as  long  as  you  live,  that  you  have  heard  Chopin 
play."  It  was  in  one  of  the  lubberly  houses  of 
the  Place  Vendome  that  the  poet  of  the  keyboard 
died  a  few  days  later.  Just  around  the  corner,  in 
the  Rue  du  Mont  Thabor,  died  Alfred  de  Musset. 
A  brass  plate  marks  the  house. 

May  I  not  here  transcribe  that  verse  of  the  fa- 
mous "Ballad  of  Bouillabaisse,"  which  I  have  never 
been  able  to  recite,  or  read  aloud,  and  part  of  which 
I  may  at  length  take  to  myself: 

"Ah  me,  how  quick  the  days  are  flitting! 

I  mind  me  of  a  time  that's  gone, 
When  here  I'd  sit,  as  now  I'm  sitting 

In  this  same  place — but  not  alone — 
A  fair  young  form  was  nestled  near  me, 

A  dear,  dear  face  looked  fondly  up, 

[64] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

And  sweetly  spoke  and  smiled  to  hear  me, 
There's  no  one  now  to  share  my  cup." 

The  writer  of  these  lines  a  cynic!     Nonsense. 
When  will  the  world  learn  to  discriminate? 


It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  Paris  without  giving 
a  foremost  place  in  the  memorial  retrospect  to  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne,  the  Parisian's  Coney  Island.  I 
recall  that  I  passed  the  final  Sunday  of  my  last 
Parisian  sojourn  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
World  War  with  a  beloved  family  party  in  the  joy- 
ous old  Common.  There  is  none  like  it  in  the  world, 
uniting  the  urban  to  the  rural  with  such  surpassing 
grace  as  perpetually  to  convey  a  double  sensation 
of  pleasure;  primal  in  its  simplicity,  superb  in  its 
setting;  in  the  variety  and  brilliancy  of  the  life 
which,  upon  sunny  afternoons,  takes  possession  of 
it  and  makes  it  a  cross  between  a  parade  and  a  para- 
dise. 

There  was  a  time  when,  rather  far  away  for  foot 
travel,  the  Bois  might  be  considered  a  driving  park 
for  the  rich.    It  fairly  blazed  with  the  ostentatious 

[65] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

splendor  of  the  Second  Empire;  the  shoddy  Duke 
with  his  shady  retinue,  in  gilded  coach-and-f our ; 
the  world-famous  courtesan,  bedizened  with  costly 
jewels  and  quite  as  well  known  as  the  Empress;  the 
favorites  of  the  Tuileries,  the  Comedie  Francaise, 
the  Opera,  the  Jardin  Mabille,  forming  an  unceas- 
ing and  dazzling  line  of  many-sided  frivolity  from 
the  Port  de  Ville  to  the  Port  St.  Cloud,  circling 
round  La  Bagatelle  and  ranging  about  the  Cafe 
Cascade,  a  human  tiara  of  diamonds,  a  moving  bou- 
quet of  laces  and  rubies,  of  silks  and  satins  and 
emeralds  and  sapphires.  Those  were  the  days  when 
the  Due  de  Morny,  half  if  not  full  brother  of  the 
Emperor,  ruled  as  king  of  the  Bourse,  and  Cora 
Pearl,  a  clever  and  not  at  all  good-looking  Irish 
girl  gone  wrong,  reigned  as  Queen  of  the  Demi- 
monde. 

All  this  went  by  the  board  years  ago.  Every- 
where, more  or  less,  electricity  has  obliterated  dis- 
tinctions of  rank  and  wealth.  It  has  circumvented 
lovers  and  annihilated  romance.  The  Republic 
ousted  the  bogus  nobility.  The  subways  and  the 
tram  cars  connect  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  and  the 
Bois  de  Vincennes  so  closely  that  the  poorest  may 
make  himself  at  home  in  either  or  both. 
[66] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

The  automobile,  too,  oddly  enough,  is  proving  a 
very  leveller.  The  crowd  recognizes  nobody  amid 
the  hurly-burly  of  coupes,  pony-carts,  and  taxicabs, 
each  trying  to  pass  the  other.  The  conglomeration 
of  personalities  effaces  the  identity  alike  of  the 
statesman  and  the  artist,  the  savant  and  the  cyprian. 
No  six-inch  rules  hedge  the  shade  of  the  trees  and 
limit  the  glory  of  the  grass.  The  oiwrier  can  bring 
his  brood  and  his  basket  and  have  his  picnic  where 
he  pleases.  The  pastry  cook  and  his  chere  amie,  the 
coiffeur  and  his  grisette  can  spoon  by  the  lake-side 
as  long  as  the  moonlight  lasts,  and  longer  if  they 
list,  with  never  a  gendarme  to  say  them  nay,  or  a 
rude  voice  out  of  the  depths  hoarsely  to  declaim, 
"allez!"  The  Bois  de  Boulogne  is  literally  and  ab- 
solutely a  playground,  the  playground  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  this  last  Sunday  of  mine,  not  fewer  than 
half  a  million  of  Parisians  were  making  it  their  own. 

Half  of  these  encircled  the  Longchamps  race- 
course. The  other  half  were  shared  by  the  boats 
upon  the  lagoons  and  the  bosky  dells  under  the 
summer  sky  and  the  cafes  and  the  restaurants  with 
which  the  Bois  abounds.  Our  party,  having  ex- 
hausted the  humors  of  the  drive,  repaired  to  Pre 
Catalan.    Aside  from  the  "two  old  brides"  who  are 

[67] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

always  in  evidence  on  such  occasions,  there  was  a 
veritable  "young  couple,"  exceedingly  pretty  to 
look  at,  and  delightfully  in  love !  That  sort  of  thing 
is  not  so  uncommon  in  Paris  as  cynics  affect  to 
think. 

If  it  be  true,  as  the  witty  Frenchman  observes, 
that  "gambling  is  the  recreation  of  gentlemen  and 
the  passion  of  fools,"  it  is  equally  true  that  love  is 
a  game  where  every  player  wins  if  he  sticks  to  it 
and  is  loyal  to  it.  Just  as  credit  is  the  foundation 
of  business  is  love  both  the  asset  and  the  trade-mark 
of  happiness.  To  see  it  is  to  believe  it,  and — though 
a  little  cash  in  hand  is  needful  to  both — where  either 
is  wanting,  look  out  for  sheriffs  and  scandals. 

Pre  Catalan,  once  a  pasture  for  cows  with  a 
pretty  kiosk  for  the  sale  of  milk,  has  latterly  had 
a  tea-room  big  enough  to  seat  a  thousand,  not  count- 
ing the  groves  which  I  have  seen  grow  up  about  it 
thickly  dotted  with  booths  and  tables,  where  some 
thousands  more  may  regale  themselve-s.  That  Sun- 
day it  was  never  so  glowing  with  animation  and 
color.  As  it  makes  one  happy  to  see  others  happy 
it  makes  one  adore  his  own  land  to  witness  that 
which  makes  other  lands  great. 

I  have  not  loved  Paris  as  a  Parisian,  but  as  an 
[68] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

American;  perhaps  it  is  a  stretch  of  words  to  say 
I  love  Paris  at  all.  I  used  to  love  to  go  there 
and  to  behold  the  majesty  of  France.  I  have  al- 
ways liked  to  mark  the  startling  contrasts  of  light 
and  shade.  I  have  always  known  what  all  the  world 
now  knows,  that  beneath  the  gayety  of  the  French 
there  burns  a  patriotic  and  consuming  fire,  a  high 
sense  of  public  honor;  a  fine  spirit  of  self-sacrifice 
along  with  the  sometimes  too  aggressive  spirit  of 
freedom.  In  1873  I  saw  them  two  blocks  long  and 
three  files  deep  upon  the  Rue  St.  Honore  press  up 
to  the  Bank  of  France,  old  women  and  old  men 
with  their  little  all  tied  in  handkerchiefs  and  stock- 
ings to  take  up  the  tribute  required  by  Bismarck 
to  rid  the  soil  of  the  detested  German.  They  did 
it.  Alone  they  did  it — the  French  people — the 
hard-working,  frugal,  loyal  commonalty  of  France 
— without  asking  the  loan  of  a  sou  from  the  world 
outside. 

Yi 

Writing  of  that  last  Sunday  in  the  Bois  de  Bou- 
logne, I  find  by  recurring  to  the  record  that  I  said : 
"There  is  a  deal  more  of  good  than  bad  in  every 
Nation.    I  take  off  my  hat  to  the  French.    But, 

[69] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  have  had  my  fling  and  I  am  quite  ready  to  go 
home.  Even  amid  the  gayety  and  the  glare,  the 
splendor  of  color  and  light,  the  Hungarian  band 
wafting  to  the  greenery  and  the  stars  the  strains 
of  the  delicious  waltz,  La  Veuve  Joyeuse  her  very 
self — yea,  many  of  her — tapping  the  time  at  many 
adjacent  tables,  the  song  that  fills  my  heart  is 
'Hame,  Hame,  Hame ! — Hame  to  my  ain  countree.' 
Yet,  to  come  again,  d'ye  mind?  I  should  be  loath 
to  say  good-by  forever  to  the  Rois  de  Roulogne. 
I  want  to  come  back  to  Paris.  I  always  want  to 
come  back  to  Paris.  One  needs  not  to  make  an 
apology  or  give  a  reason. 

"We  turn  rather  sadly  awajr  from  Pre  Catalan 
and  the  Cafe  Cascade.  We  glide  adown  the  flower- 
bordered  path  and  out  from  the  clusters  of  Chinese 
lanterns,  and  leave  the  twinkling  groves  to  their 
music  and  merry-making.  Yonder  behind  us,  like 
a  sentinel,  rises  Mont  Valerien.  Refore  us  glimmer 
the  lamps  of  uncountable  coaches,  as  our  own,  veer- 
ing toward  the  city,  the  moon  just  topping  the  tower 
of  St.  Jacques  de  la  Roucherie  and  silver-plating 
the  bronze  figures  upon  the  Arch  of  Stars. 

"We  enter  the  Port  Maillot.  We  turn  into  the 
Avenue  du  Rois.  Presently  we  shall  sweep  with 
[TO] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  rest  through  the  Champs  !Elysees  and  on  to  the 
ocean  of  the  infinite,  the  heart  of  the  mystery  we 
call  Life,  nowhere  so  condensed,  so  palpable,  so 
appealing.  Roll  the  screen  away!  The  shades  of 
Clovis  and  Genevieve  may  be  seen  hand-in-hand 
with  the  shades  of  Martel  and  Pepin,  taking  the 
round  of  the  ghost-walk  between  St.  Denis  and 
St.  Germain,  now  le  Ralafre  and  again  Navarre, 
now  the  assassins  of  the  Ligue  and  now  the  as- 
sassins of  the  Terror,  to  keep  them  company.  Nor 
yet  quite  all  on  murder  bent,  some  on  pleasure ;  the 
Knights  and  Ladies  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  and  the 
hosts  of  the  Renaissance:  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  and 
Francois  Villon  leading  the  ragamuffin  procession ; 
the  jades  of  the  Fronde,  Longueville,  Chevreuse 
and  fair-haired  Anne  of  Austria;  and  Ninon,  too, 
and  Manon;  and  the  never-to-be-forgotten  Four, 
'one  for  all  and  all  for  one ;'  Cagliostro  and  Monte 
Cristo;  on  the  side,  Rabelais  taking  notes  and 
laughing  under  his  cowl.  Catherine  de  Medici  and 
Robespierre  slinking  away,  poor,  guilty  things,  into 
the  pale  twilight  of  the  Dawn! 

"Names!  Names!  Only  names?  I  am  not  just 
so  sure  about  that.  In  any  event,  what  a  roll  call! 
We  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our 

[71] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

little  life  is  rounded  by  a  sleep;  the  selfsame  sleep 
which  these,  our  living  dead  men  and  women  in 
steel  armor  and  gauzy  muslins,  in  silken  hose  and 
sock  and  buskin,  epaulettes  and  top  boots,  brocades 
and  buff  facings,  have  endured  so  long  and  know 
so  well! 

"If  I  should  die  in  Paris  I  should  expect  them 
— or  some  of  them — to  meet  me  at  the  barriers  and 
to  say,  'Behold,  the  wickedness  that  was  done  in  the 
world,  the  cruelty  and  the  wrong,  dwelt  in  the  body, 
not  in  the  soul  of  man,  which  freed  from  its  foul 
incasement,  purified  and  made  eternal  by  the  hand 
of  death,  shall  see  both  the  glory  and  the  hand  of 
God!'" 

It  was  not  to  be.  I  shall  not  die  in  Paris.  I 
shall  never  come  again.  Neither  shall  I  make 
apology  for  this  long  quotation  by  myself  from 
myself,  for  am  I  not  inditing  an  autobiography,  so 
called? 


[72] 


CHAPTER  THE  SIXTEENTH 

MONTE    CARLO THE    EUROPEAN    SHRINE    OF    SPORT 

AND    FASHION APOCHRYPHAL   GAMBLING   STO- 
RIES  LEOPOLD,    KING    OF    THE    BELGIANS AN 

ABLE  AND  PICTURESQUE  MAN  OF  BUSINESS 


HAVING  disported  ourselves  in  and  about 
Paris,  next  in  order  comes  a  journey  to  the 
South  of  France — that  is  to  the  Riviera — by  geog- 
raphy the  main  circle  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  by 
proclamation  Cannes,  Nice,  and  Mentone,  by  actual 
fact  and  count,  Monte  Carlo — even  the  swells 
adopting  a  certain  hypocrisy  as  due  to  virtue. 

Whilst  Monte  Carlo  is  chiefly,  I  might  say  ex- 
clusively, identified  in  the  general  mind  with  gam- 
bling, and  was  indeed  at  the  outset  but  a  gambling 
resort,  it  long  ago  outgrew  the  limits  of  the  Casino, 
becoming  a  Mecca  of  the  world  of  fashion  as  well  as 
the  world  of  sport.    Half  the  ruling  sovereigns  of 

[73] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Europe  and  all  the  leaders  of  European  swelldom, 
the  more  prosperous  of  the  demi-mondaines  and  no 
end  of  the  merely  rich  of  every  land,  congregate 
there  and  thereabouts.  At  the  top  of  the  season  the 
show  of  opulence  and  impudence  is  bewildering. 

The  little  principality  of  Monaco  is  hardly  big- 
ger than  the  Cabbage  Patch  of  the  renowned  Mrs. 
Wiggs.  It  is,  however,  more  happily  situate.  Nes- 
tled under  the  heights  of  La  Condamine  and  Tete 
de  Chien  and  looking  across  a  sheltered  bay  upon 
the  wide  and  blue  Mediterranean,  it  has  better  pro- 
tection against  the  winds  of  the  North  than  Nice, 
or  Cannes,  or  Mentone.  It  is  an  appanage — in 
point  of  fact  the  only  estate — remaining  to  the  once 
powerful  Grimaldi  family. 

In  the  early  days  of  land-piracy  Old  Man  Gri- 
maldi held  his  own  with  Old  Man  Hohenzollern 
and  Old  Man  Hapsburg.  The  Savoys  and  the 
Bourbons  were  kith  and  kin.  But  in  the  long  run 
of  Freebooting  the  Grimaldis  did  not  keep  up  with 
the  procession.  How  they  retained  even  this  rem- 
nant of  inherited  brigandage  and  self-appointed 
royalty,  I  do  not  know.  They  are  here  under  leave 
of  the  Powers  and  the  especial  protection,  strange 
to  say,  of  the  French  Republic. 
[74] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Something  over  fifty  years  ago,  being  hard-up 
for  cash,  the  Grimaldi  of  the  period  fell  under  the 
wiles  of  an  ingenious  Alsatian  gambler,  Guerlac 
by  name,  who  foresaw  that  Baden-Baden  and 
Hombourg  were  approaching  their  finish  and  that 
the  sports  must  look  elsewhere  for  their  living,  the 
idle  rich  for  their  sport.  This  tiny  "enclave"  in 
French  territory  presented  many  advantages  over 
the  German  Dukedoms.  It  was  an  independent 
sovereignty  issuing  its  own  coins  and  postage 
stamps.  It  was  in  proud  possession  of  a  half-dozen 
policemen  which  it  called  its  "army."  It  was  para- 
disaic in  beauty  and  climate.  Its  "ruler"  was  as 
poor  as  Job's  turkey,  but  by  no  means  as  proud  as 
Lucifer. 

The  bargain  was  struck.  The  gambler  smote  the 
rock  of  Monte  Carlo  as  with  a  wand  of  enchant- 
ment and  a  stream  of  plenty  burst  forth.  The 
mountain-side  responded  to  the  touch.  It  chortled 
in  its  glee  and  blossomed  as  the  rose. 

ii 

The  region  known  as  the  Riviera  comprises,  as 
I  have  said,  the  whole  land- circle  of  the  Mediter- 

[75] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ranean  Sea.  But,  as  generally  written  and  under- 
stood, it  stands  for  the  shoreline  between  Marseilles 
and  Genoa.  The  two  cities  are  connected  by  the 
Corniche  Road,  built  by  the  First  Napoleon,  who 
learned  the  need  of  it  when  he  made  his  Italian 
campaign,  and  the  modern  railway,  the  distance 
260  miles,  two-thirds  of  the  way  through  France, 
the  residue  through  Italy,  and  all  of  it  surpassing 
fine. 

The  climate  is  very  like  that  of  Southern  Florida. 
But  as  in  Florida  they  have  the  "Nor'westers" 
and  the  "Nor'easters,"  on  the  Riviera  they  have 
the  "mistral."  In  Europe  there  is  no  perfect  win- 
ter weather  north  of  Spain,  as  in  the  United  States 
none  north  of  Cuba. 

I  have  often  thought  that  Havana  might  be  made 
a  dangerous  rival  of  Monte  Carlo  under  the  one- 
man  power,  exercising  its  despotism  with  benignant 
intelligence  and  spending  its  income  honestly  upon 
the  development  of  both  the  city  and  the  island. 
The  motley  populace  would  probably  be  none  the 
worse  for  it.  The  Government  could  upon  a  lib- 
eral tariff  collect  not  less  than  thirty-five  millions 
of  annual  revenue.  Twenty-five  of  these  millions 
would  suffice  for  its  own  support.  Ten  millions  a 
[76] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

year  laid  out  upon  harbors,  roadways  and  internal 
improvements  in  general  would  within  ten  years 
make  the  Queen  of  the  Antilles  the  garden  spot  and 
playground  of  Christendom.  They  would  build  a 
Casino  to  outshine  even  the  architectural  miracles 
of  Charles  Gamier.  Then  would  Havana  put 
Cairo  out  of  business  and  give  the  Prince  of 
Monaco  a  run  for  his  money. 

With  the  opening  of  every  Monte  Carlo  season 
the  newspapers  used  to  tell  of  the  colossal  winnings 
of  purely  imaginary  players.  Sometimes  the  fa- 
vored child  of  chance  was  a  Russian,  sometimes 
an  Englishman,  sometimes  an  American.  He  was 
usually  a  myth,  of  course.  As  Mrs.  Prig  observed 
to  Mrs.  Camp,  "there  never  was  no  sich  person." 

in 

Charles  Gamier,  the  Parisian  architect,  came  and 
built  the  Casino,  next  to  the  Library  of  Congress 
at  Washington  and  the  Grand  Opera  House  at 
Paris  the  most  beautiful  building  in  the  world,  with 
incomparable  gardens  and  commanding  esplanades 
to  set  it  off  and  display  it.  Around  it  palatial  hotels 
and  private  mansions  and  villas  sprang  into  exist- 

[77] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ence.  Within  it  a  gold-making  wheel  of  fortune 
fabricated  the  wherewithal.  Old  Man  Grimaldi  in 
his  wildest  dreams  of  land-piracy — even  Old  Man 
Hohenzollern,  or  Old  Man  Hapsburg — never  con- 
ceived the  like. 

There  is  no  poverty,  no  want,  no  taxes — not  any 
sign  of  dilapidation  or  squalor  anywhere  in  the  prin- 
cipality of  Monaco.  Yet  the  "people,"  so  called, 
have  been  known  to  lapse  into  a  state  of  discontent. 
They  sometimes  "yearned  for  freedom."  Too  well 
fed  and  cared  for,  too  rid  of  dirt  and  debt,  too  flour- 
ishing, they  "riz."  Prosperity  grew  monotonous. 
They  even  had  the  nerve  to  demand  a  "Constitu- 
tion." 

The  reigning  Prince  was  what  Yellowplush 
would  call  "a  scientific  gent."  His  son  and  heir, 
however,  had  not  his  head  in  the  clouds,  being  in 
point  of  fact  of  the  earth  earthly,  and,  of  conse- 
quence, more  popular  than  his  father.  He  came 
down  from  the  Castle  on  the  hill  to  the  market- 
place in  the  town  and  says  he:  "What  do  you  ga- 
loots want,  anyhow?" 

First,  their  "rights."  Then  a  change  in  the  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  army,  which  had  grown  from 
[78] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

six  to  sixteen.  Finally,  a  Board  of  Aldermen  and 
a  Common  Council. 

"Is  that  all?"  says  his  Royal  Highness.  They 
said  it  was.  "Then,"  says  he,  "take  it,  mes  enfants, 
and  bless  you!" 

So,  all  went  well  again.  The  toy  sovereignty 
began  to  rattle  around  in  its  own  conceit,  the  "peo- 
ple" regarded  themselves,  and  wished  to  be  re- 
garded, as  a  chartered  Democracy.  The  little  gim- 
crack  economic  system  experienced  the  joys  of  re- 
form. A  "New  Nationalism"  was  established  in 
the  brewery  down  by  the  railway  station  and  a  reci- 
procity treaty  was  negotiated  between  the  Casino 
and  Vanity  Fair,  witnessing  the  introduction  of 
two  roulette  tables  and  an  extra  brazier  for  cigar 
stumps. 

But  the  Prince  of  Monaco  stood  on  one  point. 
He  would  have  no  Committee  on  Credentials. 
He  told  me  once  that  he  had  heard  of  Tom  Reed 
and  Champ  Clark  and  Uncle  Joe  Cannon,  but  that 
he  preferred  Uncle  Joe.  He  would,  and  he  did, 
name  his  own  committees  both  in  the  Board  of  Al- 
dermen and  the  Common  Council.  Thus,  for  the 
time  being,  "insurgency"  was  quelled.  And  once 
more  serenely  sat  the  Castle  on  the  hill  hard  by  the 

[79] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Cathedral.  Calmly  again  flowed  the  waters  in 
the  harbor.  More  and  more  the  autos  honked  out- 
side the  Casino.  Within  "the  little  ball  ever  goes 
merrily  round,"  and  according  to  the  croupiers  and 
the  society  reporters  "the  gentleman  wins  and  the 
poor  gambler  loses!" 

IV 

To  illustrate,  I  recall  when  on  a  certain  season 
the  lucky  sport  of  print  and  fancy  was  an  English- 
man. In  one  of  those  farragos  of  stupidity  and 
inaccuracy  which  are  syndicated  and  sent  from 
abroad  to  America,  I  found  the  following  piece 
with  the  stuff  and  nonsense  habitually  worked  off 
on  the  American  press  as  "foreign  correspondence": 

"Now  and  then  the  newspapers  report  authentic 
instances  of  large  sums  having  been  won  at  the 
gaming  tables  at  Monte  Carlo.  One  of  the  most 
fortunate  players  at  Monte  Carlo  for  a  long  time 
past  has  been  a  Mr.  Darnbrough,  an  Englishman, 
whose  remarkable  run  of  luck  had  furnished  the 
morsels  of  gossip  in  the  capitals  of  Continental 
Europe  recently. 

"If  reports  are  true,  he  left  the  place  with  the 
snug  sum  of  more  than  1,000,000  francs  to  the  good 
[80] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

as  the  result  of  a  month's  play.  But  this,  I  hear, 
did  not  represent  all  of  Mr.  Darnbrough's  win- 
nings. The  story  goes  that  on  the  opening  day  of 
his  play  he  staked  24,000  francs,  winning  all  along 
the  line.  Emboldened  by  his  success,  he  continued 
playing,  winning  again  and  again  with  marvelous 
luck.  At  one  period,  it  is  said,  his  credit  balance 
amounted  to  no  less  than  1,850,000  francs ;  but  from 
that  moment  Dame  Fortune  ceased  to  smile  upon 
him.  He  lost  steadily  from  200,000  to  300,000 
francs  a  day,  until,  recognizing  that  luck  had  turned 
against  him,  he  had  sufficient  strength  of  will  to 
turn  his  back  on  the  tables  and  strike  for  home  with 
the  very  substantial  winnings  that  still  remained. 

"On  another  occasion  a  well-known  London 
stock  broker  walked  off  with  little  short  of  £40,000. 
This  remarkable  performance  occasioned  no  small 
amount  of  excitement  in  the  gambling  rooms,  as 
such  an  unusual  incident  does  invariably. 

"Bent  on  making  a  'plunge,'  he  went  from  one 
table  to  another,  placing  the  maximum  stake  on 
the  same  number.  Strange  to  relate,  at  each  table 
the  same  number  won,  and  it  was  his  number. 
Recognizing  that  this  perhaps  might  be  his  lucky 
day,  the  player  wended  his  way  to  the  trente-et- 

[81] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

quarante  room  and  put  the  maximum  on  three  of 
the  tables  there.  To  his  amazement,  he  discovered 
that  there  also  he  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to  select 
the  winning  number. 

"The  head  croupier  confided  to  a  friend  of  the 
writer  who  happened  to  be  present  that  that  day 
had  been  the  worst  in  the  history  of  the  Monaco 
bank  for  years.  He  it  was  also  who  mentioned  the 
amount  won  by  the  fortunate  Londoner,  as  given 
above." 

It  is  prudent  of  the  space-writers  to  ascribe  such 
"information"  as  this  to  "the  head  croupier,"  be- 
cause it  is  precisely  the  like  that  such  an  authority 
would  give  out.  People  upon  the  spot  know  that 
nothing  of  the  kind  happened,  and  that  no  person 
of  that  name  had  appeared  upon  the  scene.  The 
story  on  the  face  of  it  bears  to  the  knowing  its  own 
refutation,  being  absurd  in  every  detail.  As  if  con- 
scious of  this,  the  author  proceeds  to  quality  it  in 
the  following: 

"It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  one  of  the  most 
successful  players  at  the  Monte  Carlo  tables  was 
Wells,  who  as  the  once  popular  music-hall  song 
put  it,  'broke  the  bank'  there.  He  was  at  the  zenith 
of  his  fame,  about  twenty  years  ago,  when  his  esca- 
[82] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

pades — and  winnings — were  talked  about  widely 
and  envied  in  European  sporting  circles  and  among 
the  demi-monde. 

"In  ten  days,  it  was  said,  he  made  upward  of 
£35,000  clear  winnings  at  the  tables  after  starting 
with  the  modest  capital  of  £400.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten,  however,  that  at  his  trial  later  Wells 
denied  this,  stating  that  all  he  had  made  was  £7,000 
at  four  consecutive  sittings.  He  made  the  state- 
ment that,  even  so,  he  had  been  a  loser  in  the  end. 

"The  reader  may  take  his  choice  of  the  two  state- 
ments, but  among  frequenters  of  the  rooms,  at 
Monte  Carlo  it  is  generally  considered  impossible 
to  amass  large  winnings  without  risking  large 
stakes.  Even  then  the  chances  are  1,000  to  1  in 
favor  of  the  bank.  Yet  occasionally  there  are  win- 
nings running  into  four  or  five  figures,  and  to 
human  beings  the  possibility  of  chance  constitutes 
an  irresistible  fascination. 

"Only  a  few  years  ago  a  young  American  was 
credited  with  having  risen  from  the  tables  $75,000 
richer  than  when  first  he  had  sat  down.  It  was  his 
first  visit  to  Monte  Carlo  and  he  had  not  come  with 
any  system  to  break  the  bank  or  with  any  'get-rich- 
quick'  idea.    For  the  novelty  of  the  thing  he  risked 

[83] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

about  $4,000,  and  lost  it  all  in  one  fell  swoop  with- 
out turning  a  hair.  Then  he  'plunged'  with  double 
that  amount,  but  the  best  part  of  that,  too,  went 
the  same  way.  Nothing  daunted,  he  next  ventured 
$10,000.  This  time  fickle  fortune  favored  him.  He 
played  on  with  growing  confidence  and  when  his 
winnings  amounted  to  the  respectable  sum  of  $75,- 
000  he  had  the  good  sense  to  quit  and  to  leave  the 
place  despite  the  temptation  to  continue." 


The  "man  who  broke  the  bank  at  Monte  Carlo," 
and  gave  occasion  for  the  song,  was  not  named 
"Wells"  and  he  was  not  an  Englishman.  He  was 
an  American.  I  knew  him  well  and  soon  after  the 
event  had  from  his  own  lips  the  whole  story. 

He  came  to  Monte  Carlo  with  a  good  deal  of 
money  won  at  draw-poker  in  a  club  at  Paris  and 
went  away  richer  by  some  100,000  francs  (about 
$20,000)  than  he  came. 

The  catch-line  of  the  song  is  misleading.    There 

is  no  such  thing  as  "breaking  the  bank  at  Monte 

Carlo."     This  particular  player  won  so  fast  upon 

two  or  three  "spins"  that  the  table  at  which  he 

[84] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

played  had  to  suspend  until  it  could  be  replenished 
by  another  "bank,"  perhaps  ten  minutes  in  point 
of  time.  There  used  to  be  some  twenty  tables. 
Just  how  one  man  could  play  a'c  more  than  one  of 
them  at  one  time  a  "foreign  correspondent,"  but 
only  a  "foreign  correspondent,"  might  explain  to 
the  satisfaction  of  the  horse-marines. 

I  very  much  doubt  whether  any  player  ever  won 
more  than  100,000  francs  at  a  single  sitting.  To 
do  even  that  he  must  plunge  like  a  ship  in  a  hurri- 
cane. There  is,  of  course,  a  saving  limit  set  by  the 
Casino  Company  upon  the  play.  It  is  to  the  in- 
terest of  the  Casino  to  cultivate  the  idea,  and  the 
letter  writers  are  willing  tools.  Not  only  at  Monte 
Carlo,  but  everywhere,  in  dearth  of  news,  gambling 
stories  come  cheap  and  easy.  And  the  cheaper  the 
story  the  bigger  the  play.  "The  Jedge  raised  him 
two  thousand  dollars.  The  Colonel  raised  him  back 
ten  thousand  more.  Both  of  'em  stood  pat.  The 
Jedge  bet  him  a  hundred  thousand.  The  Colonel 
called.  'What  you  got?'  says  he.  'Ace  high,'  says 
the  Jedge;  'what  you  got?'  'Pair  o'  deuces,'  says 
the  Colonel." 

Assuredly  the  "play"  in  the  Casino  is  entirely 
fair.    It  could  hardly  be  otherwise  with  such  crowds 

[85] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  players  at  the  tables,  often  covering  the  whole 
"layout."  But  there  is  no  such  thing  as  "honest 
gambling."  The  "house"  must  have  "the  best  of 
it."  A  famous  American  gambler,  when  I  had  re- 
ferred to  one  of  his  guild,  lately  deceased,  as  "an 
honest  gambler,"  said  to  me:  "What  do  you  mean 
by  'an  honest  gambler'?" 

"A  gambler  who  will  not  take  unfair  advantage !" 
I  answered. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "the  gambler  must  have  his  ad- 
vantage, because  gambling  is  his  livelihood.  He 
must  fit  himself  for  its  profitable  pursuit  by  learn- 
ing all  the  tricks  of  trade  like  other  artists  and 
artificers.    With  him  it  is  win  or  starve." 

Among  the  variegate  crowds  that  thronged  the 
highways  and  byways  of  Monte  Carlo  in  those  days 
there  was  no  single  figure  more  observed  and  strik- 
ing than  that  of  Leopold  the  Second,  King  of  the 
Belgians.  He  had  a  bungalow  overlooking  the  sea 
where  he  lived  three  months  of  the  year  like  a  coun- 
try gentleman.  Although  I  have  made  it  a  rule  to 
avoid  courts  and  courtiers,  an  event  brought  me 
into  acquaintance  with  this  best  abused  man  in  Eu- 
rope, enabling  me  to  form  my  own  estimate  of  his 
very  interesting  personality. 
[86] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

He  was  not  at  all  what  his  enemies  represented 
him  to  be,  a  sot,  a  gambler  and  a  roue.  In  appear- 
ance a  benignant  burgomaster,  tall  and  stalwart; 
in  manner  and  voice  very  gentle,  he  should  be  de- 
scribed as  first  of  all  a  man  of  business.  His  weak- 
ness was  rather  for  money  than  women.  Speaking 
of  the  most  famous  of  the  Parisian  dancers  with 
whom  his  name  had  been  scandalously  associated, 
he  told  me  that  he  had  never  met  her  but  once  in 
his  life,  and  that  after  the  newspaper  gossips  had 
been  busy  for  years  with  their  alleged  love  affair. 
"I  kissed  her  hand,"  he  related,  "and  bade  her 
adieu,  saying,  'Ah,  ma'mselle,  you  and  I  have  in- 
deed reason  to  congratulate  ourselves.'  " 

It  was  the  Congo  business  that  lay  at  the  bottom 
of  the  abuse  of  Leopold.  Henry  Stanley  had  put 
him  up  to  this.  It  turned  out  a  gold  mine,  and  then 
two  streams  of  defamation  were  let  loose ;  one  from 
the  covetous  commercial  standpoint  and  the  other 
from  the  humanitarian.  Between  them,  seeking  to 
drive  him  out,  they  depicted  him  as  a  monster  of 
cruelty  and  depravity. 

A  King  must  be  an  anchorite  to  escape  calumny, 
and  Leopold  was  not  an  anchorite.    I  asked  him 

[87] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

why  I  never  saw  him  in  the  Casino.  "Play,"  he 
answered,  "does  not  interest  me.  Besides,  I  do  not 
enjoy  being  talked  about.  Nor  do  I  think  the 
game  they  play  there  quite  fair." 

"In  what  way  do  you  consider  it  unfair,  your 
Majesty?"  I  asked. 

"In  the  zero,"  he  replied.  "At  the  Brussels 
Casino  I  do  not  allow  them  to  have  a  zero.  Come 
and  see  me  and  I  will  show  you  a  perfectly  equal 
chance  for  your  money,  to  win  or  lose." 

Years  after  I  was  in  Brussels.  Leopold  had 
gone  to  his  account  and  his  nephew,  Albert,  had 
come  to  the  throne.  There  was  not  a  roulette  table 
in  the  Casino,  but  there  was  one  conveniently  ad- 
jacent thereto,  managed  by  a  clique  of  New  York 
gamblers,  which  had  both  a  single  "and  a  double 
O,"  and,  as  appeared  when  the  municipality  made 
a  descent  upon  the  place,  was  ingeniously  wired 
to  throw  the  ball  wherever  the  presiding  coupier 
wanted  it  to  go. 

I  do  not  believe,  however,  that  Leopold  was  a 

party  to  this,  or  could  have  had  any  knowledge  of 

it.    He  was  a  skillful,  not  a  dishonest,  business  man, 

who  showed  his  foresight  when  he  listened  to  Stan- 

[88] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ley  and  took  him  under  his  wing.  If  the  Congo 
had  turned  out  worthless  nobody  would  ever  have 
heard  of  the  delinquencies  of  the  King  of  the  Bel- 
gians. 


•[89] 


CHAPTER  THE  SEVENTEENTH 

A  PARISIAN  "PENSION" — THE  WIDOW  OF  WALEWSEA, 
NAPOLEON'S  DAUGHTER  -  IN  -  LAW  —  THE 
CHANGELESS — A  MORAL  AND   ORDERLY  CITY 


1HAVE  said  that  I  knew  the  widow  of  Wa- 
lewska,  the  natural  son  of  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte by  the  Polish  countess  he  picked  up  in  War- 
saw, who  followed  him  to  Paris ;  and  thereby  hangs 
a  tale  which  may  not  be  without  interest. 

In  each  of  our  many  sojourns  in  Paris  my  wife 
and  I  had  taken  an  apartment,  living  the  while  in 
the  restaurants,  at  first  the  cheaper,  like  the  Cafe 
de  Progress  and  the  Duval  places;  then  the  Boeuf 
a  la  Mode,  the  Cafe  Voisin  and  the  Cafe  Anglais, 
with  Champoux's,  in  the  Place  de  la  Bourse,  for  a 
regular  luncheon  resort. 

At  length,  the  children  something  more  than 
half  grown,  I  said:  "We  have  never  tried  a  Paris 
pension." 
[90] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

So  with  a  half  dozen  recommended  addresses  we 
set  out  on  a  house  hunt.  We  had  not  gone  far 
when  our  search  was  rewarded  by  a  veritable  find. 
This  was  on  the  Avenue  de  Courcelles,  not  far  from 
the  Pare  Monceau;  newly  furnished;  reasonable 
charges;  the  lady  manager  a  beautiful  well-man- 
nered woman,  half  Scotch  and  half  French. 

We  moved  in.  When  dinner  was  called  the 
boarders  assembled  in  the  very  elegant  drawing- 
room.   Madame  presented  us  to  Baron .    Then 

followed  introductions  to  Madame  la  Duchesse  and 
Madame  la  Princesse  and  Madame  la  Comtesse. 
Then  the  folding  doors  opened  and  dinner  was  an- 
nounced. 

The  baron  sat  at  the  center  of  the  table.  The 
meal  consisted  of  eight  or  ten  courses,  served  as  if 
at  a  private  house,  and  of  surpassing  quality.  Dur- 
ing the  three  months  that  we  remained  there  was 
no  evidence  of  a  boarding  house.  It  appeared  an 
aristocratic  family  into  which  we  had  been  hospit- 
ably admitted.  The  baron  was  a  delightful  per- 
son. Madame  la  Duchesse  was  the  mother  of  Ma- 
dame la  Princesse,  and  both  were  charming.  The 
Comtesse,  the  Napoleonic  widow,  was  at  first  a  lit- 

[91] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

tie  formal,  but  she  came  round  after  we  had  got 
acquainted,  and,  when  we  took  our  departure,  it 
was  like  leaving  a  veritable  domestic  circle. 

Years  after  we  had  the  sequel.  The  baron,  a 
poor  young  nobleman,  had  come  into  a  little  money. 
He  thought  to  make  it  breed.  He  had  an  equally 
poor  Scotch  cousin,  who  undertook  to  play  hostess. 
Both  the  Duchess  and  the  Countess  were  his  kins- 
women.   How  could  such  a  menage  last? 

He  lost  his  all.  What  became  of  our  fellow- 
lodgers  I  never  learned,  but  the  venture  coming  to 
naught,  the  last  I  heard  of  the  beautiful  high-bred 
lady  manager,  she  was  serving  as  a  stewardess  on 
an  ocean  liner.  Nothing,  however,  could  exceed  the 
luxury,  the  felicity  and  the  good  company  of  those 
memorable  three  months  chez  V Avenue  de  Cour- 
celles,  Pare  Monceau. 

We  never  tried  a  pension  again.  We  chose  a  de- 
lightful hotel  in  the  Rue  de  Castiglione  off  the  Rue 
de  Rivoli,  and  remained  there  as  fixtures  until  we 
were  reckoned  the  oldest  inhabitants.  But  we  never 
deserted  the  dear  old  Bceuf  a  la  Mode,  which  we 
lived  to  see  one  of  the  most  flourishing  and  popular 
places  in  Paris. 
[92] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 


ii 


In  the  old  days  there  was  a  little  hotel  on  the  Rue 
Dannou,  midway  between  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  and 
what  later  along  became  the  Avenue  de  l'Opera, 
called  the  Hotel  d'Orient.  It  was  conducted  by  a 
certain  Madame  Hougenin,  whose  family  had  held 
the  lease  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  and  was 
typical  of  what  the  comfort- seeking  visitor,  some- 
what initiate,  might  find  before  the  modern  tourist 
onrush  overflowed  all  bounds  and  effaced  the  an- 
cient landmarks — or  should  I  say  townmarks? — 
making  a  resort  instead  of  a  home  of  the  gay  French 
capital.  The  d'Orient  was  delightfully  comfort- 
able and  fabulously  cheap. 

The  wayfarer  entered  a  darksome  passage  that 
led  to  an  inner  court.  There  were  on  the  four  sides 
of  this  seven  or  eight  stories  pierced  by  many  win- 
dows. There  was  never  a  lift,  or  what  we  Ameri- 
cans call  an  elevator.  If  you  wanted  to  go  up  you 
walked  up;  and  after  dark  your  single  illuminant 
was  candlelight.  The  service  could  hardly  be  rec- 
ommended, but  cleanliness  herself  could  find  no 
fault  with  the  beds  and  bedding;  nor  any  queer 

[93] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

people  about ;  changeless ;  as  still  and  stationary  as 
a  nook  in  the  Rockies. 

A  young  girl  might  dwell  there  year  in  and  year 
out  in  perfect  safety — many  young  girls  did  so — 
madame  a  kind  of  duenna.  The  food — for  it  was  a 
pension — was  all  a  gourmet  could  desire.  And  the 
wine! 

I  was  lunching  with  an  old  Parisian  friend. 

"What  do  you  think  of  this  vintage?"  says  he. 

"Very  good,"  I  answered.  "Come  and  dine  with 
me  to-morrow  and  I  will  give  you  the  mate  to  it." 

"What— at  the  d'Orient?" 

"Yes,  at  the  d'Orient." 

"Preposterous!" 

Nevertheless,  he  came.  When  the  wine  was 
poured  out  he  took  a  sip. 

"By !"  he  exclaimed.     "That  is  good,  isn't 

it?    I  wonder  where  they  got  it?    And  how?" 

During  the  week  after  we  had  it  every  day.  Then 
no  more.  The  headwaiter,  with  many  apologies, 
explained  that  he  had  found  those  few  bottles  in 
a  forgotten  bin,  where  they  had  lain  for  years,  and 
he  begged  a  thousand  pardons  of  monsieur,  but  we 
had  drunk  them  all — rien  du  plus — no  more.  I 
might  add  that  precisely  the  same  thing  happened 
[94] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  me  at  the  Hotel  Continental.  Indeed,  it  is  not 
uncommon  with  the  French  caravansaries  to  keep  a 
little  extra  good  wine  in  stock  for  those  who  can 
distinguish  between  an  ordinaire  and  a  superieur, 
and  are  willing  to  pay  the  price. 

in 

"See  Naples  and  die,"  say  the  Italians.  "See 
Paris  and  live,"  say  the  French.  Old  friends,  who 
have  been  over  and  back,  have  been  of  late  telling 
me  that  Paris,  having  woefully  suffered,  is  nowise 
the  Paris  it  was,  and  as  the  provisional  offspring 
of  four  years  of  desolating  war  I  can  well  believe 
them.  But  a  year  or  two  of  peace,  and  the  city  will 
rise  again,  as  after  the  Franco-Prussian  War  and 
the  Commune,  which  laid  upon  it  a  sufficiently 
blighting  hand.  In  spite  of  fickle  fortune  and  its 
many  ups  and  downs  it  is,  and  will  ever  remain, 
"Paris,  the  Changeless." 

I  never  saw  the  town  so  much  itself  as  just  be- 
fore the  beginning  of  the  world  war.  I  took  my 
departure  in  the  early  summer  of  that  fateful  year 
and  left  all  things  booming — not  a  sign  or  trace 
that  there  had  ever  been  aught  but  boundless  happi- 

[95] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ness  and  prosperity.  It  is  hard,  the  saying  has  it, 
to  keep  a  squirrel  on  the  ground,  and  surely  Paris 
is  the  squirrel  among  cities.  The  season  just  ended 
had  been,  everybody  declared,  uncommonly  success- 
ful from  the  standpoints  alike  of  the  hotels  and 
cafes,  the  shop  folk  and  their  patrons,  not  to  men- 
tion the  purely  pleasure-seeking  throng.  People 
seemed  loaded  with  money  and  giddy  to  spend  it. 

The  headwaiter  at  Voisin's  told  me  this:  "Mr. 
Barnes,  of  New  York,  ordered  a  dinner,  carte 
blanche,  for  twelve. 

"  'Now,'  says  he,  'garcon,  have  everything  bang 
up,  and  here's  seventy-five  francs  for  a  starter.' 

"The  dinner  was  bang  up.  Everybody  hilarious. 
Mr.  Barnes  immensely  pleased.  When  he  came  to 
pay  his  bill,  which  was  a  corker,  he  made  no  ob- 
jection. 

"  'Garcon,'  says  he,  'if  I  ask  you  a  question  will 
you  tell  me  the  truth?' 

"  'Oui,  monsieur;  certcdnement.3 

"Well,  how  much  was  the  largest  tip  you  ever 
received?" 

"Seventy-five  francs,  monsieur." 

"  'Very  well ;  here  are  100  francs.' 

"Then,  after  a  pause  for  the  waiter  to  digest  his 
[96] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Joy  and  express  a  proper  sense  of  gratitude  and 
wonder,  Mr.  Barnes  came  to  time  with:  'Do  you 
remember  who  was  the  idiot  that  paid  you  the  sev^ 
enty-five  francs?' 

"  'Oh,  yes,  monsieur.    It  was  you.'  " 


IV 


It  has  occurred  to  me  that  of  late  years — I  mean 
the  years  immediately  before  1914 — Paris  has  been 
rather  more  bent  upon  adapting  itself  to  human 
and  moral  as  well  as  scientific  progress.  There  has 
certainly  been  less  debauchery  visible  to  the  naked 
eye.  I  was  assured  that  the  patronage  had  so  fal- 
len away  from  the  Moulin  Rouge  that  they  were 
planning  to  turn  it  into  a  decent  theater.  Nor 
during  my  sojourn  did  anybody  in  my  hearing  so 
much  as  mention  the  Dead  Rat.  I  doubt  whether 
it  is  still  in  existence. 

The  last  time  I  was  in  Maxim's — quite  a  dozen 
years  ago  now — a  young  woman  sat  next  to  me 
whose  story  could  be  read  in  her  face.  She  was  a 
pretty  thing  not  five  and  twenty,  still  blooming, 
with  iron-gray  hair.  It  had  turned  in  a  night,  I 
was  told.    She  had  recently  come  from  Baltimore 

[97] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  knew  no  more  what  she  was  doing  or  whither 
she  was  drifting  than  a  baby.  The  old,  old  story: 
a  comfortable  home  and  a  good  husband;  even  a 
child  or  two;  a  scoundrel,  a  scandal,  an  elopement, 
and  the  inevitable  desertion.  Left  without  a  dollar 
in  the  streets  of  Paris.  She  was  under  convoy  of 
a  noted  procuress. 

"A  duke  or  the  morgue,"  she  whimpered,  "in  six 
months." 

Three  months  sufficed.  They  dragged  all  that 
remained  of  her  out  of  the  Seine,  and  then  the  whole 
of  the  pitiful  disgrace  and  tragedy  came  out. 


If  ever  I  indite  a  volume  to  be  entitled  Adven- 
tures in  Paris  it  will  contain  not  a  line  to  feed  any 
prurient  fancy,  but  will  embrace  the  record  of  many 
little  journeys  between  the  Coiffeur  and  the  Marche 
des  Fleurs,  with  maybe  an  excursion  among  the 
cemeteries  and  the  restaurants. 

Each  city  is  as  one  makes  it  for  himself.  Paris 
has  contributed  greatly  to  my  appreciation,  and 
perhaps  my  knowledge,  of  history  and  literature 
and  art  and  life.    I  have  seen  it  in  all  its  aspects; 

[98] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

under  the  empire,  when  the  Due  de  Morny  was 
king  of  the  Bourse  and  Mexico  was  to  make  every 
Frenchman  rich ;  after  the  commune  and  the  siege, 
when  the  Hotel  de  Ville  was  in  ruins,  the  palace  of 
the  Tuileries  still  aflame,  the  column  gone  from 
the  Place  Vendome,  and  everything  a  blight  and 
waste;  and  I  have  marked  it  rise  from  its  ashes, 
grandly,  proudly,  and  like  a  queen  come  to  her  own 
again,  resume  its  primacy  as  the  only  complete  me- 
tropolis in  all  the  universe. 

There  is  no  denying  it.  No  city  can  approach 
Paris  in  structural  unity  and  regality,  in  things 
brilliant  and  beautiful,  in  buoyancy,  variety,  charm 
and  creature  comfort.  Drunkenness,  of  the  kind  fa- 
miliar to  London  and  New  York,  is  invisible  to 
Paris.  The  brandy  and  absinthe  habit  has  been 
greatly  exaggerated.  In  truth,  everywhere  in  Eu- 
rope the  use  of  intoxicants  is  on  the  decline.  They 
are,  for  the  first  time  in  France,  stimulated  partly 
by  the  alarming  adulteration  of  French  wines,  rig- 
orously applying  and  enforcing  the  pure-food  laws. 

As  a  consequence,  there  is  a  palpable  and  decided 
improvement  of  the  vintage  of  the  Garonne  and  the 
Champagne  country.  One  may  get  a  good  glass  of 
wine  now  without  impoverishing  himself.    As  men 

[99] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

drink  wine,  and  as  the  wine  is  pure,  they  fall  away 
from  stronger  drink.  I  have  always  considered, 
with  Jefferson,  the  brewery  in  America  an  excel- 
lent temperance  society.  That  which  works  other- 
wise is  the  dive  which  too  often  the  brewery  fathers. 
They  are  drinking  more  beer  in  France — even  mak- 
ing a  fairly  good  beer.    And  then 

But  gracious,  this  is  getting  upon  things  con- 
troversial, and  if  there  is  anything  in  this  world  that 
I  do  hybominate,  it  is  controversy! 

Few  of  the  wondrous  changes  which  the  Age  of 
Miracles  has  wrought  in  my  day  and  generation 
exceeded  those  of  ocean  travel.  The  modern  liner 
is  but  a  moving  palace.  Between  the  ports  of  the 
Old  World  and  the  ports  of  the  new  the  transit  is 
so  uneventful  as  to  grow  monotonous.  There  are 
no  more  adventures  on  the  high  seas.  The  ocean 
is  a  thoroughfare,  the  crossing  a  ferry.  My  expe- 
rience forty  years  ago  upon  one  of  the  ancient  tubs 
which  have  been  supplanted  by  these  liners  would 
make  queer  reading  to  the  latter-day  tourist,  tak- 
ing, let  us  say,  any  one  of  the  steamers  of  any  one 
of  the  leading  transatlantic  companies.  The  differ- 
ence in  the  appointments  of  the  William  Penn  of 
1865  and  the  star  boats  of  1914  is  indescribable.  It 
[100] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

seems  a  fairy  tale  to  think  of  a  palm  garden  where 
the  ladies  dress  for  dinner,  a  Hungarian  band  which 
plays  for  them  whilst  they  dine,  and  a  sky  parlor 
where  they  go  after  dinner  for  their  coffee  and 
what  not;  a  tea-room  for  the  five-o'clockers ;  and 
except  in  excessive  weather  scarcely  any  motion  at 
all.  It  is  this  palm  garden  which  most  appeals  to 
a  certain  lady  of  my  very  intimate  acquaintance 
who  had  made  many  crossings  and  never  gone  to 
her  meals — sick  from  shore  to  shore — until  the  gods 
ordained  for  her  a  watery,  winery,  flowery  paradise 
— where  the  billows  ceased  from  troubling  and  a 
woman  could  appear  at  her  best.  Since  then  she 
has  sailed  many  times,  lodged  a  la  Waldorf-Astoria 
to  eat  her  victuals  and  sip  her  wine  with  perfect 
contentment.  Coming  ashore  from  our  last  cross- 
ing a  friend  found  her  in  the  Red  Room  of  that 
hostel  just  as  she  had  been  sitting  the  evening  be- 
fore on  shipboard. 

"Seems  hardly  any  motion  at  all,"  she  said,  look- 
ing about  her  and  fancying  herself  still  at  sea,  as 
well  she  might. 


[101] 


CHAPTER  THE  EIGHTEENTH 

THE     GROVER     CLEVELAND     PERIOD PRESIDENT     AR- 
THUR AND   MR.   BLAINE JOHN   CHAMBERLAIN 

THE  DECREES  OF  DESTINY 


HAT  may  be  called  the  Grover  Cleveland 
period  of  American  politics  began  with  the 
election  of  that  extraordinary  person — another  man 
of  destiny — to  the  governorship  of  New  York. 
Nominated,  as  it  were,  by  chance,  he  carried  the 
State  by  an  unprecedented  majority,,  That  was 
not  because  of  his  popularity,  but  that  an  incred- 
ible number  of  Republican  voters  refused  to  sup- 
port their  party  ticket  and  stayed  away  from  the 
polls.  The  Blaine-Conkling  feud,  inflamed  by  the 
murder  of  ,Garfield,  had  rent  the  party  of  Lincoln 
and  Grant  asunder.  Arthur,  a  Conkling  leader, 
had  succeeded  to  the  presidency. 

If  any  human  agency  could  have  sealed  the 
[102] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

breach  he  might  have  done  it.     No  man,  however, 
can  achieve  the  impossible.    The  case  was  hopeless. 

Arthur  was  a  man  of  surpassing  sweetness  and 
grace.  As  handsome  as  Pierce,  as  affable  as  Mc- 
Kinley,  he  was  a  more  experienced  and  dextrous 
politician  than  either.  He  had  been  put  on  the 
ticket  with  Garfield  to  placate  Conkling.  All  sorts 
of  stories  to  his  discredit  were  told  during  the  en- 
suing campaign.  The  Democrats  made  him  out  a 
tricky  and  typical  "New  York  politician."  In 
point  of  fact  he  was  a  many-sided,  accomplished 
man  who  had  a  taking  way  of  adjusting  all  con- 
ditions and  adapting  himself  to  all  companies. 

With  a  sister  as  charming  and  tactful  as  he  for 
head  of  his  domestic  fabric,  the  White  House 
bloomed  again.  He  possessed  the  knack  of  sur- 
rounding himself  with  all  sorts  of  agreeable  people. 
Frederick  Frelinghuysen  was  Secretary  of  State 
and  Robert  Lincoln,  continued  from  the  Garfield 
Cabinet,  Secretary  of  War.  Then  there  were  three 
irresistibles:  Walter  Gresham,  Frank  Hatton  and 
"Ben"  Brewster.  His  home  contingent — "Clint" 
Wheeler,  "Steve"  French,  and  "Jake"  Hess — pic- 
tured as  "ward  heelers" — were,  in  reality,  efficient 

[103] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  all-around,  companionable  men,  capable  and 
loyal. 

I  was  sent  by  the  Associated  Press  to  Washing- 
ton on  a  fool's  errand — that  is,  to  get  an  act  of 
Congress  extending  copyright  to  the  news  of  the 
association — and,  remaining  the  entire  session,  my 
business  to  meet  the  official  great  and  to  make  my- 
self acceptable,  I  came  into  a  certain  intimacy  with 
the  Administration  circle,  having  long  had  friendly 
relations  with  the  President.  In  all  my  life  I  have 
never  passed  so  delightful  and  useless  a  winter. 

Very  early  in  the  action  I  found  that  my  mission 
involved  a  serious  and  vexed  question — nothing  less 
than  the  creation  of  a  new  property — and  I 
proceeded  warily.  Through  my  uncle,  Stanley 
Matthews,  I  interested  the  members  of  the  Su- 
preme Court.  The  Attorney  General,  a  great  law- 
yer and  an  old  Philadelphia  friend,  was  at  my  call 
and  elbow.  The  Joint  Library  Committee  of  Con- 
gress, to  which  the  measure  must  go,  was  with  me. 
Yet  somehow  the  scheme  lagged. 

I  could  not  account  for  this.  One  evening  at  a 
dinner  Mr.  Blaine  enlightened  me.  We  sat  to- 
gether at  table  and  suddenly  he  turned  and  said: 
"How  are  you  getting  on  with  your  bill?"  And 
[104] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

my  reply  being  rather  halting,  he  continued,  "You 
won't  get  a  vote  in  either  House,"  and  he  pro- 
ceeded very  humorously  to  improvise  the  average 
member's  argument  against  it  as  a  dangerous 
power,  a  perquisite  to  the  great  newspapers  and  an 
imposition  upon  the  little  ones.  To  my  mind  this 
was  something  more  than  the  post-prandial  levity 
it  was  meant  to  be. 

Not  long  after  a  learned  but  dissolute  old  lawyer 
said  to  me,  "You  need  no  act  of  Congress  to  pro- 
tect your  news  service.  There  are  at  least  two, 
and  I  think  four  or  five,  English  rulings  that  cover 
the  case.  Let  me  show  them  to  you."  He  did  so 
and  I  went  no  further  with  the  business,  quite  agree- 
ing with  Mr.  Blaine,  and  nothing  further  came  of 
it.  To  a  recent  date  the  Associated  Press  has  relied 
on  these  decisions  under  the  common  law  of  Eng- 
land. Curiously  enough,  quite  a  number  of  news- 
papers in  whose  actual  service  I  was  engaged, 
opened  fire  upon  me  and  roundly  abused  me. 

ii 

There  appeared  upon  the  scene  in  Washington 
toward  the  middle  of  the  seventies  one  of  those 

[105] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

problematical  characters  the  fiction-mongers  delight 
in.  This  was  John  Chamberlin.  During  two  dec- 
ades " Chamber lin's,"  half  clubhouse  and  half  chop- 
house,  was  all  a  rendezvous. 

"John"  had  been  a  gambler;  first  an  underling 
and  then  a  partner  of  the  famous  Morrissy-Mc- 
Grath  racing  combination  at  Saratoga  and  Long 
Branch.  There  was  a  time  when  he  was  literally 
rolling  in  wealth.  Then  he  went  broke — dead 
broke.  Black  Friday  began  it  and  the  panic  of  '73 
finished  it.  He  came  over  to  Washington  and  his 
friends  got  him  the  restaurant  privileges  of  the 
House  of  Representatives.  With  this  for  a  start- 
ing point,  he  was  able  to  take  the  Fernando  Wood 
residence,  in  the  heart  of  the  fashionable  quarter, 
to  add  to  it  presently  the  adjoining  dwelling  of 
Governor  Swann,  of  Maryland,  and  next  to  that, 
finally,  the  Blaine  mansion,  making  a  suite,  as  it 
were,  elegant  yet  cozy.  "Welcker's,"  erst  a  fash- 
ionable resort,  and  long  the  best  eating-place  in 
town,  had  been  ruined  by  a  scandal,  and  "Cham- 
berlin's"  succeeded  it,  having  the  field  to  itself, 
though,  mindful  of  the  "scandal"  which  had  made 
its  opportunity,  ladies  were  barred. 

There  was  a  famous  cook — Emeline  Simmons — 
[106] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

a  mulatto  woman,  who  was  equally  at  home  in 
French  dishes  and  Maryland- Virginia  kitchen  mys- 
teries— a  very  wonder  with  canvasback  and  terrapin 
— who  later  refused  a  great  money  offer  to  be  chef 
at  the  White  House — whom  John  was  able  to  se- 
cure. Nothing  could  surpass — could  equal — her 
preparations.  The  charges,  like  the  victuals,  were 
sky-high  and  tip-top.  The  service  was  handled  by 
three  "colored  gentlemen,"  as  distinguished  in  man- 
ners as  in  appearance,  who  were  known  far  and 
wide  by  name  and  who  dominated  all  about  them, 
including  John  and  his  patrons. 

No  such  place  ever  existed  before,  or  will  ever 
exist  again.  It  was  the  personality  of  John  Cham- 
berlin,  pervasive  yet  invisible,  exhaling  a  silent, 
welcoming  radiance.  General  Grant  once  said  to 
me,  "During  my  eight  years  in  the  White  House, 
John  Chamberlin  once  in  a  while — once  in  a  great 
while — came  over.  He  did  not  ask  for  anything. 
He  just  told  me  what  to  do,  and  I  did  it."  I  men- 
tioned this  to  President  Arthur.  "Well,"  he  laugh- 
ingly said,  "that  has  been  my  experience  with  John 
Chamberlin.  It  never  crosses  my  mind  to  say  him 
'nay.'  Often  I  have  turned  this  over  in  my  thought 
to  reach  the  conclusion  that  being  a  man  of  sound 

[107] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

judgment  and  worldly  knowledge,  he  has  fully  con- 
sidered the  case — his  case  and  my  case — leaving  me 
no  reasonable  objection  to  interpose." 

John  obtained  an  act  of  Congress  authorizing 
him  to  build  a  hotel  on  the  .Government  reservation 
at  Fortress  Monroe,  and  another  of  the  Virginia 
Legislature  confirming  this  for  the  State.  Then  he 
came  to  me.  It  was  at  the  moment  when  I  was 
flourishing  as  "a  Wall  Street  magnate."  He  said: 
"I  want  to  sell  this  franchise  to  some  man,  or  com- 
pany, rich  enough  to  carry  it  through.  All  I  expect 
is  a  nest  egg  for  Emily  and  the  girls" — he  had  mar- 
ried the  beautiful  Emily  Thorn,  widow  of  George 
Jordan,  the  actor,  and  there  were  two  daughters — 
"you  are  hand-and-glove  with  the  millionaires. 
Won't  you  manage  it  for  me?"  Like  Grant  and 
Arthur,  I  never  thought  of  refusing.  Upon  the 
understanding  that  I  was  to  receive  no  commission, 
I  agreed,  first  ascertaining  that  it  was  really  a  most 
valuable  franchise. 

I  began  with  the  Willards,  in  whose  hotel  I  had 
grown  up.  They  were  rich  and  going  out  of  busi- 
ness. Then  I  laid  it  before  Hitchcock  and  Darling, 
of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  in  New  York.  They, 
rich  like  the  Willards,  were  also  retiring.  Then  a 
[108] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

bright  thought  occurred  to  me.  I  went  to  the 
Prince  Imperial  of  Standard  Oil.  "Mr.  Flagler," 
I  said,  "you  have  hotels  at  St.  Augustine  and  you 
have  hotels  at  Palm  Beach.  Here  is  a  halfway 
point  between  New  York  and  Florida,"  and  more 
of  the  same  sort.  "My  dear  friend,"  he  answered, 
"every  man  has  the  right  to  make  a  fool  of  himself 
once  in  his  life.  This  I  have  already  done.  Never 
again  for  me.  I  have  put  up  my  last  dollar  south 
of  the  Potomac."  Then  I  went  to  the  King  of  the 
transcontinental  railways.  "Mr.  Huntington,"  I 
said,  "you  own  a  road  extending  from  St.  Louis  to 
Newport  News,  having  a  terminal  in  a  cornfield 
just  out  of  Hampton  Roads.  Here  is  a  franchise 
which  gives  you  a  magnificent  site  at  Hampton 
Roads  itself.  Why  not?"  He  gazed  upon  me 
with  a  blank  stare — such  I  fancy  as  he  usually 
turned  upon  his  suppliants — and  slowly  replied:  "I 
would  not  spend  another  dollar  in  Virginia  if  the 
Lord  commanded  me.  In  the  event  that  some  su- 
pernatural power  should  take  the  Chesapeake  & 
Ohio  Railway  by  the  nape  of  the  neck  and  the  seat 
of  the  breeches  and  pitch  it  out  in  the  middle  of  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  it  would  be  doing  me  a  favor." 
So  I  returned  John  his  franchise  marked  "noth- 

[109] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ing  doing."  Afterward  he  put  it  in  the  hands  of 
a  very  near  friend,  a  great  capitalist,  who  had  no 
better  luck  with  it.  Finally,  here  and  there,  lit- 
erally by  piecemeal,  he  got  together  money  enough 
to  build  and  furnish  the  Hotel  Chamberlin,  had  a 
notable  opening  with  half  of  Congress  there  to  see, 
and  gently  laid  himself  down  and  died,  leaving  little 
other  than  friends  and  debts. 

in 

Macaulay  tells  us  that  the  dinner-table  is  a  won- 
drous peacemaker,  miracle  worker,  social  solvent; 
and  many  were  the  quarrels  composed  and  the  plans 
perfected  under  the  Chamberlin  roof.  It  became  a 
kind  of  Congressional  Exchange  with  a  close  White 
House  connection.  If  those  old  walls,  which  by  the 
way  are  still  standing,  could  speak,  what  tales  they 
might  tell,  what  testimonies  refute,  what  new  lights 
throw  into  the  vacant  corners  and  dark  places  of 
history ! 

Coming    away    from    Chamberlin's    with    Mr. 

Blaine  for  an  after-dinner  stroll  during  the  winter 

of  1883-4,  referring  to  the  approaching  National 

Republican  Convention,  he  said:  "I  do  not  want 

[110] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  nomination.  In  my  opinion  there  is  but  one 
nominee  the  Republicans  can  elect  this  year  and 
that  is  General  Sherman.  I  have  written  him  to 
tell  him  so  and  urge  it  upon  him.  In  default  of  him 
the  time  of  you  people  has  come."  He  subsequently 
showed  me  this  letter  and  General  Sherman's  reply. 
My  recollection  is  that  the  General  declared  that  he 
would  not  take  the  presidency  if  it  were  offered  him, 
earnestly  invoking  Mr.  Blaine  to  support  his  broth- 
er, John  Sherman. 

This  would  seem  clear  refutation  that  Mr.  Blaine 
was  party  to  his  own  nomination  that  year.  It  as- 
suredly reveals  keen  political  instinct  and  fore- 
sight. The  capital  prize  in  the  national  lottery  was 
not  for  him. 

I  did  not  meet  him  until  two  years  later,  when 
he  gave  me  a  minute  account  of  what  had  happened 
immediately  thereafter;  the  swing  around  the  cir- 
cle; Belshazzar's  feast,  as  a  fatal  New  York  ban- 
quet was  called;  the  far-famed  Burchard  incident. 
"I  did  not  hear  the  words,  'Rum,  Romanism  and 
Rebellion,'  "  he  told  me,  "else,  as  you  must  know, 
I  would  have  fittingly  disposed  of  them." 

I  said:  "Mr.  Blaine,  you  may  as  well  give  it  up. 
The  doom  of  Webster,  Clay,  and  Douglas  is  upon 

cm] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

you.  If  you  are  nominated  again,  with  an  assured 
election,  you  will  die  before  the  day  of  election.  If 
you  survive  the  day  and  are  elected,  you'll  die  be- 
fore the  4th  of  March."  He  smiled  grimly  and 
replied:  "It  really  looks  that  way." 

My  own  opinion  has  always  been  that  if  the  Re- 
publicans had  nominated  Mr.  Arthur  in  1884  they 
would  have  elected  him.  The  New  York  vote  would 
scarcely  have  been  so  close.  In  the  count  of  the 
vote  the  Arthur  end  of  it  would  have  had  some  ad- 
vantage— certainly  no  disadvantage.  Cleveland's 
nearly  200,000  majority  had  dwindled  to  the  claim 
of  a  beggarly  few  hundred,  and  it  was  charged  that 
votes  which  belonged  to  Butler,  who  ran  as  an  in- 
dependent labor  candidate,  were  actually  counted 
for  Cleveland. 

When  it  was  over  an  old  Republican  friend  of 
mine  said:  "Now  we  are  even.  History  will  attest 
that  we  stole  it  once  and  you  stole  it  once.  Turn 
about  may  be  fair  play;  but,  all  the  same,  neither 
of  us  likes  it." 

So  Grover  Cleveland,  unheard  of  outside  of  Buf- 
falo two  years  before,  was  to  be  President  of  the 
United  States.  The  night  preceding  his  nomina- 
tion for  the  governorship  of  New  York,  General 
[112] 


"MARSE  HENRY'* 

Slocum  seemed  in  the  State  convention  sure  of  that 
nomination.  Had  he  received  it  he  would  have  car- 
ried the  State  as  Cleveland  did,  and  Slocum,  not 
Cleveland,  would  have  been  the  Chief  Magistrate. 
It  cost  Providence  a  supreme  effort  to  pull  Cleve- 
land through.  But  in  his  case,  as  in  many  another, 
Providence  "got  there"  in  fulfilment  of  a  decree 
of  Destiny. 


[113] 


CHAPTER  THE  NINETEENTH 

MR.  CLEVELAND  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE MR.  BAYARD 

IN    THE    DEPARTMENT    OF    STATE QUEER    AP- 
POINTMENTS    TO     OFFICE  THE     ONE-PARTY 

POWER — THE  END  OF  NORTH  AND  SOUTH   SEC- 
TIONALISM 

I 

(HE  futility  of  political  as  well  as  of  other  hu- 
man reckoning  was  set  forth  by  the  result  of 
the  presidential  election  of  1884.  With  a  kind  of 
prescience,  as  I  have  related,  Mr.  Blaine  had  fore- 
seen it.  He  was  a  sagacious  as  well  as  a  lovable  and 
brilliant  man.  He  looked  back  affectionately  upon 
the  days  he  had  passed  in  Kentucky,  when  a  poor 
school-teacher,  and  was  especially  cordial  to  the 
Kentuckians.  In  the  House  he  and  Beck  were 
sworn  friends,  and  they  continued  their  friendship 
when  both  of  them  had  reached  the  Senate. 

I  inherited  Mr.  Blaine's  desk  in  the  Ways  and 
Means  Committee  room.    In  one  of  the  drawers  of 
[114] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

this  he  had  left  a  parcel  of  forgotten  papers,  which 
I  returned  to  him.  He  made  a  joke  of  the  secrets 
they  covered  and  the  fortunate  circumstance  that 
they  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  friend  and  not 
of  an  enemy. 

No  man  of  his  time  could  hold  a  candle  to  Mr. 
Blaine  in  what  we  call  magnetism — that  is,  in  manly 
charm,  supported  by  facility  and  brain  power. 
Clay  and  Douglas  had  set  the  standard  of  party 
leadership  before  his  time.  He  made  a  good  third 
to  them.  I  never  knew  Mr.  Clay,  but  with  Judge 
Douglas  I  was  well  acquainted,  and  the  difference 
between  him  and  Mr.  Blaine  in  leadership  might 
be  called  negligible. 

Both  were  intellectually  aggressive  and  individu- 
ally amiable.  They  at  least  seemed  to  love  their  fel- 
low men.  Each  had  been  tried  by  many  adventures. 
Each  had  gone,  as  it  were,  "through  the  flint  mill." 
Born  to  good  conditions — Mr.  Blaine  sprang  from 
aristocratic  forebears — each  knew  by  early  albeit 
brief  experience  the  seamy  side  of  life ;  as  each,  like 
Clay,  nursed  a  consuming  passion  for  the  presi- 
dency. Neither  had  been  made  for  a  subaltern,  and 
they  chafed  under  the  subaltern  yoke  to  which  fate 
had  condemned  them. 

[115] 


"MARSE  HENRY/ 


n 

In  Grover  Cleveland  a  total  stranger  had  ar- 
rived at  the  front  of  affairs.  The  Democrats,  after 
a  rule  of  more  than  half  a  century,  had  been  out 
of  power  twenty-four  years.  They  could  scarce 
realize  at  first  that  they  were  again  in  power.  The 
new  chieftain  proved  more  of  an  unknown  quantity 
than  had  been  suspected.  William  Dorsheimer,  a 
life-long  crony,  had  brought  the  two  of  us  together 
before  Cleveland's  election  to  the  governorship  of 
the  Empire  State  as  one  of  a  group  of  attractive 
Buffalo  men,  most  of  whom  might  be  said  to  have 
been  cronies  of  mine,  Buffalo  being  a  delightful 
halfway  stop-over  in  my  frequent  migrations  be- 
tween Kentucky  and  the  Eastern  seaboard.  As  in 
the  end  we  came  to  a  parting  of  the  ways  I  want  to 
write  of  Mr.  Cleveland  as  a  historian  and  not  as  a 
critic. 

He  said  to  Mr.  Carlisle  after  one  of  our  oc- 
casional tiffs :    "Henry  will  never  like  me  until  God 
makes  me  over  again."    The  next  time  we  met,  re- 
ferring to  this,  I  said:  "Mr.  President,  I  like  you 
[116] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

very  much — very  much  indeed — but  sometimes  I 
don't  like  some  of  your  ways." 

There  were  in  point  of  fact  two  Cleveland^ — be- 
fore marriage  and  after  marriage — the  inter- 
mediate Cleveland  rather  unequal  and  indetermi- 
nate. Assuredly  no  one  of  his  predecessors  had 
entered  the  White  House  so  wholly  ignorant  of 
public  men  and  national  affairs.  Stories  used  to  be 
told  assigning  to  Zachary  Taylor  this  equivocal  dis- 
tinction. But  General  Taylor  had  grown  up  in  the 
army  and  advanced  in  the  military  service  to  a  chief 
command,  was  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  party 
leaders  of  his  time,  and  was  by  heredity  a  gentle- 
man. The  same  was  measurably  true  of  Grant. 
Cleveland  confessed  himself  to  have  had  no  social 
training,  and  he  literally  knew  nobody. 

Five  or  six  weeks  after  his  inauguration  I  went 
to  Washington  to  ask  a  diplomatic  appointment  for 
my  friend,  Boyd  Winchester.  Ill  health  had  cut 
short  a  promising  career  in  Congress,  but  Mr.  Win- 
chester was  now  well  on  to  recovery,  and  there 
seemed  no  reason  why  he  should  not  and  did  not 
stand  in  the  line  of  preferment.  My  experience 
may  be  worth  recording  because  it  is  illustrative. 

In  my  quest  I  had  not  thought  of  going  beyond 

[117] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Mr.  Bayard,  the  new  Secretary  of  State.  I  did  go 
to  him,  but  the  matter  seemed  to  make  no  headway. 
There  apjDeared  a  hitch  somewhere.  It  had  not 
crossed  my  mind  that  it  might  be  the  President  him- 
self. What  did  the  President  know  or  care  about 
foreign  appointments? 

He  said  to  me  on  a  Saturday  when  I  was  intro- 
ducing a  party  of  Kentucky  friends:  "Come  up  to- 
morrow for  luncheon.  Come  early,  for  Rose" — his 
sister,  for  the  time  being  mistress  of  the  White 
House — "will  be  at  church  and  we  can  have  an  old- 
fashioned  talk-it-out." 

The  next  day  we  passed  the  forenoon  together. 
He  was  full  of  homely  and  often  whimsical  talk. 
He  told  me  he  had  not  yet  realized  what  had  hap- 
pened to  him. 

"Sometimes,"  he  said,  "I  wake  at  night  and  rub 
my  eyes  and  wonder  if  it  is  not  all  a  dream." 

He  asked  an  infinite  number  of  questions  about 
this,  that  and  the  other  Democratic  politician.  He 
was  having  trouble  with  the  Kentucky  Congress- 
men. He  had  appointed  a  most  unlikely  scion  of  a 
well-known  family  to  a  foreign  mission,  and  an- 
other young  Kentuckian,  the  son  of  a  New  York 
magnate,  to  a  leading  consul  generalship,  without 
[118] 


"MAR8E  HENRY" 

consultation  with  any  one.  He  asked  me  about 
these.  In  a  way  one  of  them  was  one  of  my  boys, 
and  I  was  glad  to  see  him  get  what  he  wanted, 
though  he  aspired  to  nothing  so  high.  He  was  in- 
deed all  sorts  of  a  boy,  and  his  elevation  to  such  a 
post  was  so  grotesque  that  the  nomination,  like 
that  of  his  mate,  was  rejected  by  the  Senate.  I 
gave  the  President  a  serio-comic  but  kindly  ac- 
count, at  which  he  laughed  heartily,  and  ended  by 
my  asking  how  he  had  chanced  to  make  two  such 
appointments. 

"Hewitt  came  over  here,"  he  answered,  "and  then 
Dorsheimer.  The  father  is  the  only  Democrat  we 
have  in  that  great  corporation.  As  to  the  other, 
he  struck  me  as  a  likely  fellow.  It  seemed  good 
politics  to  gratify  them  and  their  friends." 

I  suggested  that  such  backing  was  far  afield  and 
not  very  safe  to  go  by,  when  suddenly  he  said:  "I 
have  been  told  over  and  over  again  by  you  and  by 
others  that  you  will  not  take  office.  Too  much  of 
a  lady,  I  suppose!  What  are  you  hanging  round 
Washington  for  anyhow?    What  do  you  want?" 

Here  was  my  opportunity  to  speak  of  Winches- 
ter, and  I  did  so. 

[119] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

When  I  had  finished  he  said:  "What  are  you 
doing  about  Winchester?" 

"Relying  on  the  Secretary  of  State,  who  served 
in  Congress  with  him  and  knows  him  well." 

Then  he  asked:  "What  do  you  want  for  Win- 
chester?" 

I  answered:  "Belgium  or  Switzerland." 

He  said:  "I  promised  Switzerland  for  a  friend 
of  Corning's.  He  brought  him  over  here  yesterday 
and  he  is  an  out-and-out  Republican  who  voted  for 
Blaine,  and  I  shall  not  appoint  him.  If  you  want 
the  place  for  Winchester,  Winchester  it  is." 

Next  day,  much  to  Mr.  Bayard's  surprise,  the 
commission  was  made  out. 

Mr.  Cleveland  had  a  way  of  sudden  fancies  to 
new  and  sometimes  queer  people.  Many  of  his  ap- 
pointments were  eccentric  and  fell  like  bombshells 
upon  the  Senate,  taking  the  appointee's  home  peo- 
ple completely  by  surprise. 

The  recommendation  of  influential  politicians 
seemed  to  have  little  if  any  weight  with  him. 

There  came  to  Washington  from  Richmond  a 
gentleman  by  the  name  of  Keiley,  backed  by  the 
Virginia  delegation  for  a  minor  consulship.     The 
President  at  once  fell  in  love  with  him. 
[120] 


r^f**' 

tr  1 

: 

!■  1     •          ! "'     1 

l,#,*J    '""""•''                HP    ft-'1*'       \  »     i 

1             :         !'•■•'"',       i        if,' 

wi^L 

flft     J                                   (mV^Sh                          Hllllll 

v- 


MR.   WATTERSON  S  LIBRARY  AT  "MANSFIELD 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Consul  be  damned,"  he  said.  "He  is  worth  more 
than  that,"  and  named  him  Ambassador  to  Vienna. 

It  turned  out  that  Mrs.  Keiley  was  a  Jewess  and 
would  not  be  received  at  court.  Then  he  named 
him  Ambassador  to  Italy,  when  it  appeared  that 
Keiley  was  an  intense  Roman  Catholic,  who  had 
made  at  least  one  ultramontane  speech,  and  would 
be  persona  non  grata  at  the  Quirinal.  Then  Cleve- 
land dropped  him.  Meanwhile  poor  Keiley  had 
closed  out  bag  and  baggage  at  Richmond  and  was 
at  his  wit's  end.  After  much  ado  the  President  was 
brought  to  a  realizing  sense  and  a  place  was  found 
for  Keiley  as  consul  general  and  diplomatic  agent 
at  Cairo,  whither  he  repaired.  At  the  end  of  the 
four  years  he  came  to  Paris  and  one  day,  crossing 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  he  was  run  over  by  a 
truck  and  killed.  He  deserved  a  longer  career  and 
a  better  fate,  for  he  was  a  man  of  real  capacity. 

in 

Taken  to  task  by  thick  and  thin  Democratic 
partisans  for  my  criticism  of  the  only  two  Demo- 
cratic Presidents  we  have  had  since  the  War  of 
Sections,  Cleveland  and  Wilson,  I  have  answered 

[121] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

by  asserting  the  right  and  duty  of  the  journalist 
to  talk  out  in  meeting,  flatly  repudiating  the  claims 
as  well  as  the  obligations  of  the  organ  grinder  they 
had  sought  to  put  upon  me,  and  closing  with  the 
knife  grinder's  retort — 

Things  have  come  to  a  hell  of  a  pass 
When  a  man  can't  wallop  his  own  jackass. 

In  the  case  of  Mr.  Cleveland  the  break  had  come 
over  the  tariff  issue.  Reading  me  his  first  message 
to  Congress  the  day  before  he  sent  it  in,  he  had  said : 
"I  know  nothing  about  the  tariff,  and  I  thought 
I  had  best  leave  it  where  you  and  Morrison  had  put 
it  in  the  platform." 

We  had  indeed  had  a  time  in  the  Platform  Com- 
mittee of  the  Chicago  convention  of  1884.  After 
an  unbroken  session  of  fifty  hours  a  straddle  was  all 
that  the  committee  could  be  brought  to  agree  upon. 
The  leading  recalcitrant  had  been  General  Butler, 
who  was  there  to  make  trouble  and  who  later  along 
bolted  the  ticket  and  ran  as  an  independent  candi- 
date. 

One  aim  of  the  Democrats  was  to  get  away  from 
the  bloody  shirt  as  an  issue.  Yet,  as  the  sequel 
proved,  it  was  long  after  Cleveland's  day  before  the 
[122] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

bloody  shirt  was  laid  finally  to  rest.  It  required  a 
patriot  and  a  hero  like  William  McKinley  to  do 
this.  When  he  signed  the  commissions  of  Joseph 
Wheeler  and  Fitzhugh  Lee,  Confederate  generals 
and  graduates  of  the  West  Point  Military  Acad- 
emy, to  be  generals  in  the  Army  of  the  United 
States,  he  made  official  announcement  that  the  War 
of  Sections  was  over  and  gave  complete  amnesty  to 
the  people  and  the  soldiers  of  the  South. 

Yet  the  bloody  shirt  lingered  long  as  a  trouble- 
maker, and  was  invoked  by  both  parties. 


IV 


That  chance  gathering  of  heedless  persons,  stirred 
by  the  bombast  of  self -exploiting  orators  eager  for 
notoriety  or  display — loose  mobs  of  local  non- 
descripts led  by  pension  sharks  so  aptly  described 
by  the  gallant  General  Bragg,  of  Wisconsin,  as 
coffee  coolers  and  camp  followers — should  tear  their 
passion  to  tatters  with  the  thought  that  Virginia, 
exercising  an  indisputable  right  and  violating  no 
reasonable  sensibility,  should  elect  to  send  mem- 
orials of  Washington  and  Lee  for  the  Hall  of 
Statues  in  the  nation's  Capitol,  came  in  the  ac- 

[123] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

customed  way  of  bloody-shirt  agitation.  It  merely 
proved  how  easily  men  are  led  when  taken  in  droves 
and  stirred  by  partyism.  Such  men  either  bore 
no  part  in  the  fighting  when  fighting  was  the  order 
of  the  time,  or  else  they  were  too  ignorant  and 
therefore  too  unpatriotic  to  comprehend  the  mean- 
ing of  the  intervening  years  and  the  glory  these 
had  brought  with  the  expanse  of  national  progress 
and  prowess.  In  spite  of  their  lack  of  representa- 
tive character  it  was  not  easy  to  repress  impatience 
at  ebullitions  of  misguided  zeal  so  ignoble;  and  of 
course  it  was  not  possible  to  dissuade  or  placate 
them. 

All  the  while  never  a  people  more  eager  to  get 
together  than  the  people  of  the  United  States  after 
the  War  of  Sections,  as  never  a  people  so  averse  to 
getting  into  that  war.  A  very  small  group  of  ex- 
tremists and  doctrinaires  had  in  the  beginning  made 
a  War  of  Sections  possible.  Enough  of  these  sur- 
vived in  the  days  of  Cleveland  and  McKinley  to 
keep  sectionalism  alive. 

It  was  mainly  sectional  clamor  out  for  partisan 

advantage.    But  it  made  the  presidential  campaigns 

lurid  in  certain  quarters.     There  was  no  end  of 

objurgation,  though  it  would  seem  that  even  the 

[124] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

most  embittered  Northerner  and  ultra  Republican 
who  could  couple  the  names  of  Robert  E.  Lee  and 
Benedict  Arnold,  as  was  often  done  in  campaign 
lingo,  would  not  hesitate,  if  his  passions  were  roused 
or  if  he  fancied  he  saw  in  it  some  profit  to  himself 
or  his  party,  to  liken  George  Washington  to  Judas 
Iscariot. 

The  placing  of  Lee's  statue  in  the  Capitol  at 
Washington  made  the  occasion  for  this. 

It  is  true  that  long  before  Confederate  officers 
had  sat  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  and  in  Republi- 
can and  Democratic  cabinets  and  upon  the  bench  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  and  had  served  as  ambassadors 
and  envoys  extraordinary  in  foreign  lands.  But 
McKinley's  doing  was  the  crowning  stroke  of  union 
and  peace. 

There  had  been  a  weary  and  varied  interim.  Sec- 
tionalism proved  a  sturdy  plant.  It  died  hard.  We 
may  waive  the  reconstruction  period  as  ancient  his- 
tory. There  followed  it  intense  party  spirit.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  extremists  and  malignants  on  both  sides 
of  the  line,  the  South  rallied  equally  with  the 
North  to  the  nation's  drumbeat  after  the  Maine 
went  down  in  the  harbor  of  Havana.  It  fought  as 
bravely  and  as  loyally  at  Santiago  and  Manila. 

[125] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Finally,  by  the  vote  of  the  North,  there  came  into 
the  Chief  Magistracy  one  who  gloried  in  the  cir- 
cumstance that  on  the  maternal  side  he  came  of 
fighting  Southern  stock;  who,  amid  universal  ap- 
plause, declared  that  no  Southerner  could  be 
prouder  than  he  of  Robert  E.  Lee  and  Stonewall 
Jackson,  apotheosizing  an  uncle,  his  mother's 
brother,  who  had  stood  at  the  head  of  the  Con- 
federate naval  establishment  in  Europe  and  had 
fitted  out  the  Confederate  cruisers,  as  the  noblest 
and  purest  man  he  had  ever  known,  a  composite  of 
Colonel  Newcome  and  Henry  Esmond. 

Meanwhile  the  process  of  oblivion  had  gone  on. 
The  graven  effigy  of  Jefferson  Davis  at  length  ap- 
peared upon  the  silver  service  of  an  American  bat- 
tleship. This  told  the  Mississippi's  guests,  wherever 
and  whenever  they  might  meet  round  her  hospitable 
board,  of  national  unification  and  peace,  giving  the 
lie  to  sectional  malignancy.  In  the  most  famous 
and  conspicuous  of  the  national  cemeteries  now 
stands  the  monument  of  a  Confederate  general  not 
only  placed  there  by  consent  of  the  Government, 
but  dedicated  with  fitting  ceremonies  supervised  by 
the  Department  of  War,  which  sent  as  its  official 
[126] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

representative  the  son  of  Grant,  himself  an  army 
officer  of  rank  and  distinction. 

The  world  has  looked  on,  incredulous  and 
amazed,  whilst  our  country  has  risen  to  each  suc- 
cessive act  in  the  drama  of  reconciliation  with  in- 
creasing enthusiasm. 

I  have  been  all  my  life  a  Constitutional  Nation- 
alist; first  the  nation  and  then  the  state.  The 
episode  of  the  Confederacy  seems  already  far  away. 
It  was  an  interlude,  even  as  matters  stood  in  the 
Sixties  and  Seventies,  and  now  he  who  would 
thwart  the  unification  of  the  country  on  the  lines  of 
oblivion,  of  mutual  and  reciprocal  forgiveness, 
throws  himself  across  the  highway  of  his  country's 
future,  and  is  a  traitor  equally  to  the  essential  prin- 
ciples of  free  government  and  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

If  sectionalism  be  not  dead  it  should  have  no 
place  in  popular  consideration.  The  country  seems 
happily  at  last  one  with  itself.  The  South,  like 
the  East  and  the  West,  has  come  to  be  the  merest 
geographic  expression.  Each  of  its  states  is  in  the 
Union,  precisely  like  the  states  of  the  East  and  the 
West,  all  in  one  and  one  in  all.  Interchanges  of 
every  sort  exist. 

These  exchanges  underlie  and  interlace  our  so- 

1127] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

cial,  domestic  and  business  fabric.  That  the  ar- 
rangement and  relation  after  half  a  century  of 
strife  thus  established  should  continue  through  all 
time  is  the  hope  and  prayer  of  every  thoughtful, 
patriotic  American.  There  is  no  greater  dissonance 
to  that  sentiment  in  the  South  than  in  the  North. 
To  what  end,  therefore,  except  ignominious  recrimi- 
nation and  ruinous  dissension,  could  a  revival  of  old 
sectional  and  partisan  passions — if  it  were  possible 
■ — be  expected  to  reach? 


Humor  has  played  no  small  part  in  our  politics. 
It  was  Col.  Mulberry  Sellers,  Mark  Twain's  hero, 
who  gave  currency  to  the  conceit  and  enunciated  the 
principle  of  "the  old  flag  and  an  appropriation."  He 
did  not  claim  the  formula  as  his  own,  however.  He 
got  it,  he  said,  of  Senator  Dillworthy,  his  patriotic 
file  leader  and  ideal  of  Christian  statesmanship. 

The  original  of  Senator  Dillworthy  was  recog- 
nized the  country  over  as  Senator  Pomeroy,  of 
Kansas,  "Old  Pom,"  as  he  had  come  to  be  called, 
whose  oleaginous  piety  and  noisy  patriotism,  ad- 
justing themselves  with  equal  facility  to  the  pur- 
[128] 


"MABSE  HENRY" 

loining  of  subsidies  and  the  roasting  of  rebels,  to 
prayer  and  land  grants,  had  impressed  themselves 
upon  the  Satirist  of  the  Gilded  Age  as  upon  his 
immediate  colleagues  in  Congress.  He  was  a  ruffle- 
shirted  Pharisee,  who  affected  the  airs  of  a  bishop, 
and  resembled  Cruikshank's  pictures  of  Pecksniff. 
There  have  not  been  many  "Old  Poms"  in  our 
public  life ;  or,  for  that  matter  Aaron  Burrs  either, 
and  but  one  Benedict  Arnold.  That  the  chosen 
people  of  God  did  not  dwell  amid  the  twilight  of  the 
ages  and  in  far-away  Judea,  but  were  reserved  to  a 
later  time,  and  a  region  then  undiscovered  of  men, 
and  that  the  American  republic  was  ordained  of 
God  to  illustrate  upon  the  theater  of  the  New 
World  the  possibilities  of  free  government  in  con- 
trast with  the  failures  and  tyrannies  and  corrup- 
tions of  the  Old,  I  do  truly  believe.  That  is  the 
first  article  in  my  confession  of  faith.  And  the 
second  is  like  unto  it,  that  Washington  was  raised 
up  by  God  to  create  it,  and  that  Lincoln  was  raised 
up  by  God  to  save  it;  else  why  the  militia  colonel 
of  Virginia  and  the  rail  splitter  of  Illinois,  for  no 
reason  that  was  obvious  at  the  time,  before  all  other 
men?  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way  his  wonders 
to  perform.    The  star  of  the  sublime  destiny  that 

[129] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

hung  over  the  manager  of  our  blessed  Savior  hung 
over  the  cradle  of  our  blessed  Union. 

Thus  far  it  has  weathered  each  historic  danger 
which  has  gone  before  to  mark  the  decline  and  fall 
of  nations;  the  struggle  for  existence;  the  foreign 
invasion;  the  internecine  strife;  the  disputed  suc- 
cession; religious  bigotry  and  racial  conflict.  One 
other  peril  confronts  it — the  demoralization  of 
wealth  and  luxury;  too  great  prosperity;  the  con- 
centration and  the  abuse  of  power.  Shall  we  sur- 
vive the  lures  with  which  the  spirit  of  evil,  playing 
upon  our  self-love,  seeks  to  trip  our  wayward  foot- 
steps, purse-pride  and  party  spirit,  mistaken  zeal 
and  perverted  religion,  fanaticism  seeking  to 
abridge  liberty  and  liberty  running  to  license,  greed 
masquerading  as  a  patriot  and  ambition  making  a 
commodity  of  glory — or  under  the  process  of  a 
divine  evolution  shall  we  be  able  to  mount  and  ride 
the  waves  which  swallowed  the  tribes  of  Israel, 
which  engulfed  the  phalanxes  of  Greece  and  the 
legions  of  Rome,  and  which  still  beat  the  sides  and 
sweep  the  decks  of  Europe? 

The  one-party  power  we  have  escaped;  the  one- 
man  power  we  have  escaped.     The  stars  in  their 

courses  fight  for  us;  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of 
[130] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  people  are  still  watchful  and  alert.  Truth  is 
mightier  than  ever,  and  justice,  mounting  guard 
even  in  the  Hall  of  Statues,  walks  everywhere  the 
battlements  of  freedom! 


[131] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTIETH 

THE    REAL    GROVER    CLEVELAND TWO    CLEYELANDS, 

BEFORE    AND    AFTER    MARRIAGE A    CORRESPON- 
DENCE  AND   A   BREAK   OF   PERSONAL   RELATIONS 


THERE  were,  as  I  have  said,  two  Grover 
Clevelands — before  and  after  marriage — and, 
it  might  be  added,  between  his  defeat  in  1888  and 
his  election  in  1892.  He  was  so  sure  of  his  election 
in  1888  that  he  could  not  be  induced  to  see  the 
danger  of  the  situation  in  his  own  State  of  New 
York,  where  David  Bennett  Hill,  who  had  suc- 
ceeded him  in  the  governorship,  was  a  candidate  for 
reelection,  and  whom  he  personally  detested,  had 
become  the  ruling  party  force.  He  lost  the  State, 
and  with  it  the  election,  while  Hill  won,  and  thereby 
arose  an  ugly  faction  fight. 

I  did  not  believe  as  the  quadrennial  period  ap- 
proached in   1892   that   Mr.    Cleveland   could  be 
elected.    I  still  think  he  owed  his  election,  and  Har- 
[132] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

rison  his  defeat,  to  the  Homestead  riots  of  the  mid- 
summer, which  transferred  the  labor  vote  bodily 
from  the  Republicans  to  the  Democrats.  Mainly 
on  account  of  this  belief  I  opposed  his  nomination 
that  year. 

In  the  Kentucky  State  Convention  I  made  my  op- 
position resonant,  if  not  effective.  "I  understand," 
I  said  in  an  address  to  the  assembled  delegates, 
"that  you  are  all  for  Grover  Cleveland?" 

There  came  an  affirmative  roar. 

"Well,"  I  continued,  "I  am  not,  and  if  you  send 
me  to  the  National  Convention  I  will  not  vote  for 
his  nomination,  if  his  be  the  only  name  presented, 
because  I  firmly  believe  that  his  nomination  will 
mean  the  marching  through  a  slaughter-house  to  an 
open  grave,  and  I  refuse  to  be  party  to  such  a 
folly." 

The  answer  of  the  convention  was  my  appoint- 
ment by  acclamation,  but  it  was  many  a  day  before 
I  heard  the  last  of  my  unlucky  figure  of  speech. 

Notwithstanding  this  splendid  indorsement,  I 
went  to  the  National  Convention  feeling  very  like 
the  traditional  "poor  boy  at  a  frolic."  All  seemed 
to  me  lost  save  honor  and  conviction.  I  had  be- 
come the  embodiment  of  my  own  epigram,  "a  tariff 

[133] 


"MAR3E  HENRY" 

for  revenue  only."  Mr.  Cleveland,  in  the  begin- 
ning very  much  taken  by  it,  had  grown  first  luke- 
warm and  then  frightened.  His  "Free  Trade" 
message  of  1887  had  been  regarded  by  the  party 
as  an  answering  voice.    But  I  knew  better. 

In  the  national  platform,  over  the  protest  of 
Whitney,  his  organizer,  and  Vilas,  his  spokesman, 
I  had  forced  him  to  stand  on  that  gospel.  He  flew 
into  a  rage  and  threatened  to  modify,  if  not  to  re- 
pudiate, the  plank  in  his  letter  of  acceptance.  We 
were  still  on  friendly  terms  and,  upon  reaching 
home,  I  wrote  him  the  following  letter.  It 
reads  like  ancient  history,  but,  as  the  quarrel  which 
followed  cut  a  certain  figure  in  the  political 
chronicle  of  the  time,  the  correspondence  may  not 
be  historically  out  of  date,  or  biographically  un- 
interesting: 

II 

MR.   WATTERSON  TO  MR.   CLEVELAND 

Courier-Journal  Office,  Louisville,  July  9,  1892. 
— My  Dear  Mr.  President:  I  inclose  you  two  edi- 
torial articles  from  the  Courier-Journal,  and,  that 
their  spirit  and  purpose  may  not  be  misunderstood 
[134] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

by  you,  I  wish  to  add  a  word  or  two  of  a  kind  di- 
rectly and  entirely  personal. 

To  a  man  of  your  robust  understanding  and 
strong  will,  opposition  and  criticism  are  apt  to  be 
taken  as  more  or  less  unfriendly;  and,  as  you  are 
at  present  advised,  I  can  hardly  expect  that  any 
words  of  mine  will  be  received  by  you  with  senti- 
ments either  of  confidence  or  favor. 

I  was  admonished  by  a  certain  distrust,  if  not  dis- 
dain, visited  upon  the  honest  challenge  I  ventured 
to  offer  your  Civil  Service  policy,  when  you  were 
actually  in  office,  that  you  did  not  differ  from  some 
other  great  men  I  have  known  in  an  unwillingness, 
or  at  least  an  inability,  to  accept,  without  resent- 
ment, the  question  of  your  infallibility.  Neverthe- 
less, I  was  then,  as  I  am  now,  your  friend,  and 
not  your  enemy,  animated  by  the  single  purpose  to 
serve  the  country,  through  you,  as,  wanting  your 
great  opportunities,  I  could  not  serve  it  through 
myself. 

During  the  four  years  when  you  were  President, 
I  asked  you  but  for  one  thing  that  lay  near  my 
heart.  You  granted  that  handsomely;  and,  if  you 
had  given  me  all  you  had  to  give  beside,  you  could 
not  have  laid  me  under  greater  obligation.    It  is  a 

[135] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

gratification  to  me  to  know,  and  it  ought  to  be  some 
warrant  both  of  my  intelligence  and  fidelity  for 
you  to  remember  that  that  matter  resulted  in  credit 
to  the  Administration  and  benefit  to  the  public 
service. 

But  to  the  point;  I  had  at  St.  Louis  in  1888  and 
at  Chicago,  the  present  year,  to  oppose  what  was 
represented  as  your  judgment  and  desire  in  the 
adoption  of  a  tariff  plank  in  our  national  platform ; 
successfully  in  both  cases.  The  inclosed  articles  set 
forth  the  reasons  forcing  upon  me  a  different  con- 
clusion from  yours,  in  terms  that  may  appear  to 
you  bluntly  specific,  but  I  hope  not  personally  of- 
fensive; certainly  not  by  intention,  for,  whilst  I 
would  not  suppress  the  truth  to  please  you  or  any 
man,  I  have  a  decent  regard  for  the  sensibilities 
and  the  rights  of  all  men,  particularly  of  men  so 
eminent  as  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  anything  ex- 
cept insolence  and  injustice.  Assuredly  in  your 
case,  I  am  incapable  of  even  so  much  as  the  covert 
thought  of  either,  entertaining  for  you  absolute  re- 
spect and  regard.  But,  my  dear  Mr.  President,  I 
do  not  think  that  you  appreciate  the  overwhelming 
force  of  the  revenue  reform  issue,  which  has  made 
you  its  idol. 
[136] 


A    CORNER    OF   "MANSFIELD    HOME    OF    HENRY   WATTERSON 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

If  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so,  in  perfect  frank- 
ness and  without  intending  to  be  rude  or  unkind, 
the  gentlemen  immediately  about  you,  gentlemen 
upon  whom  you  rely  for  material  aid  and  energetic 
party  management,  are  not,  as  to  the  Tariff,  Demo- 
crats at  all;  and  have  little  conception  of  the  place 
in  the  popular  mind  and  heart  held  by  the  Revenue 
Reform  idea,  or,  indeed  of  any  idea,  except  that  of 
organization  and  money. 

Of  the  need  of  these  latter,  no  man  has  a  more 
realizing  sense,  or  larger  information  and  experi- 
ence, than  I  have.  But  they  are  merely  the  brakes 
and  wheels  of  the  engine,  to  which  principles  and 
inspirations  are,  and  must  always  be,  the  elements 
of  life  and  motion.  It  is  to  entreat  you  therefore, 
in  your  coming  letter  and  address,  not  to  under- 
estimate the  tremendous  driving  power  of  this 
Tariff  issue,  and  to  beg  you,  not  even  to  seem  to 
qualify  it,  or  to  abridge  its  terms  in  a  mistaken 
attempt  to  seem  to  be  conservative. 

lYou  cannot  escape  your  great  message  of  1887 
if  you  would.  I  know  it  by  heart,  and  I  think  that 
I  perfectly  apprehend  its  scope  and  tenor.  Take 
it  as  your  guiding  star.    Stand  upon  it.    Reiterate 

[137] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

it.  Emphasize  it,  amplify  it,  but  do  not  subtract 
a  thought,  do  not  erase  a  word.  For  every  vote 
which  a  bold  front  may  lose  you  in  the  East  you  will 
gain  two  votes  in  the  West.  In  the  East,  particu- 
larly in  New  York,  enemies  lurk  in  your  very  cup- 
board, and  strike  at  you  from  behind  your  chair 
at  table.  There  is  more  than  a  righting  chance  for 
Illinois,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota,  and  next  to  a  cer- 
tainty in  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  and  Indiana,  if  you 
put  yourself  personally  at  the  head  of  the  column 
which  is  moving  in  your  name,  supposing  it  to  be 
another  name  for  reduced  taxes  and  freer  ex- 
changes. 

Discouraged  as  I  was  by  the  condition  of  things 
in  New  York  and  Indiana  prior  to  the  Chicago 
Convention,  depressed  and  almost  hopeless  by  your 
nomination,  I  can  see  daylight,  if  you  will  relax 
your  grip  somewhat  upon  the  East  and  throw  your- 
self confidently  upon  the  West. 

I  write  warmly  because  I  feel  warmly.  If  you 
again  occupy  the  White  House,  and  it  is  my  most 
constant  and  earnest  prayer  that  you  may,  be  sure 
that  you  will  not  be  troubled  by  me.  I  cannot  hope 
that  my  motives  in  opposing  your  nomination,  con- 
[138] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

sistent  as  you  know  them  to  have  been,  or  that  my 
conduct  during  the  post-convention  discussion  and 
canvass,  free  as  I  know  it  to  have  been  of  ill-feeling, 
or  distemper,  has  escaped  misrepresentation  and 
misconception.  I  could  not,  without  the  loss  of  my 
self-respect,  approach  you  on  any  private  matter 
whatever ;  though  it  may  not  be  amiss  for  me  to  say 
to  you,  that  three  weeks  before  the  meeting  of  the 
National  Convention,  I  wrote  to  Mr.  .Gorman  and 
Mr.  Brice  urging  the  withdrawal  of  any  opposi- 
tion, and  declaring  that  I  would  be  a  party  to  no 
movement  to  work  the  two-thirds  rule  to  defeat  the 
will  of  the  majority. 

This  is  all  I  have  to  say,  Mr.  President,  and  you 
can  believe  it  or  not,  as  you  please;  though  you 
ought  to  know  that  I  would  write  you  nothing  ex- 
cept in  sincere  conviction,  nor  speak  to  you,  or  of 
you,  except  in  a  candid  and  kindly  spirit.  Trust- 
ing that  this  will  find  you  hale,  hearty,  and  happy, 
I  am,  dear  sir,  your  fellow  democrat  and  most 
faithful  friend, 

Henry  Watterson. 

The  Honorable  Grover  Cleveland. 


[139] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 
in 

MR.  CLEVELAND  TO  MR.  tWATTERSON 

By  return  mail  I  received  this  answer : 

Gray  Gables,  Buzzards  Bay,  Mass., 
July  15,  1892. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Watterson  : 

I  have  received  your  letter  and  the  clippings  you 
inclosed. 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  understand  perfectly  all 
that  they  mean.  One  thing  they  demonstrate  be- 
yond any  doubt,  to-wit :  that  you  have  not — I  think 
I  may  say — the  slightest  conception  of  my  disposi- 
tion. It  may  be  that  I  know  as  little  about  yours. 
I  am  surprised  by  the  last  paragraph  of  The 
Courier-Journal  article  of  July  8  and  amazed  to 
read  the  statements  contained  in  your  letter,  that 
you  know  the  message  of  1887  by  heart.  It  is  a 
matter  of  very  small  importance,  but  I  hope  you 
will  allow  me  to  say,  that  in  all  the  platform  smash- 
ing you  ever  did,  you  never  injured  nor  inspired 
me  that  I  have  ever  seen  or  heard  of,  except  that  of 
1888.  I  except  that,  so  I  may  be  exactly  correct 
[140] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

when  I  write,  "seen  or  heard  of," — for  I  use  the 
words  literally. 

I  would  like  very  much  to  present  some  views  to 
you  relating  to  the  tariff  position,  but  I  am  afraid 
to  do  so. 

I  will,  however,  venture  to  say  this :  If  we  are  de- 
feated this  year,  I  predict  a  Democratic  wandering 
in  the  dark  wilds  of  discouragement  for  twenty-five 
years.  I  do  not  purpose  to  be  at  all  responsible 
for  such  a  result.  I  hope  all  others  upon  whom 
rests  the  least  responsibility  will  fully  appreciate  it. 

The  world  will  move  on  when  both  of  us  are  dead. 
While  we  stay,  and  especially  while  we  are  in  any 
way  concerned  in  political  aff airs  and  while  we  are 
members  of  the  same  political  brotherhood,  let  us 
both  resolve  to  be  just  and  modest  and  amiable. 
Yours  very  sincerely, 

Grover  Cleveland. 

Hon.  Henry  Watterson,  Louisville,  Ky. 

rv 

MR.  WATTERSON  TO  MR.  CLEVELAND 

I  said  in  answer: 

Louisville,  July  22,  1892.— My  Dear  Sir:  I  do 
not  see  how  you  could  misunderstand  the  spirit  in 

[141] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

which  I  wrote,  or  be  offended  by  my  plain  words. 
They  were  addressed  as  from  one  friend  to  another, 
as  from  one  Democrat  to  another.  If  you  enter- 
tain the  idea  that  this  is  a  false  view  of  our  relative 
positions,  and  that  your  eminence  lifts  you  above 
both  comradeship  and  counsels,  I  have  nothing  to 
say  except  to  regret  that,  in  underestimating  your 
breadth  of  character  I  exposed  myself  too  con- 
tumely. 

You  do,  indeed,  ride  a  wave  of  fortune  and  favor. 
You  are  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  insult,  real  or 
fancied.    You  could  well  afford  to  be  more  tolerant. 

In  answer  to  the  ignorance  of  my  service  to  the 
Democratic  party,  which  you  are  at  such  pains  to 
indicate — and,  particularly,  with  reference  to  the 
sectional  issue  and  the  issue  of  tariff  reform — I 
might,  if  I  wanted  to  be  unamiable,  suggest  to  you 
a  more  attentive  perusal  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
three  national  conventions  which  nominated  you  for 
President. 

But  I  purpose  nothing  of  the  sort.  In  the  last 
five  national  conventions  my  efforts  were  decisive 
in  framing  the  platform  of  the  party.  In  each  of 
them  I  closed  the  debate,  moved  the  previous  ques- 
tion and  was  sustained  by  the  convention.  In  all 
[142] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  them*,  except  the  last,  I  was  a  maker,  not  a 
smasher.  Touching  what  happened  at  Chicago,  the 
present  year,  I  had  a  right,  in  common  with  good 
Democrats,  to  be  anxious;  and  out  of  that  sense  of 
anxiety  alone  I  wrote  you.  I  am  sorry  that  my 
temerity  was  deemed  by  you  intrusive  and,  enter- 
ing a  respectful  protest  against  a  ban  which  I  can- 
not believe  to  be  deserved  by  me,  and  assuring  you 
that  I  shall  not  again  trouble  you  in  that  way,  I 
am,  your  obedient  servant, 

Henry  Watterson. 
The  Hon.  Grover  Cleveland. 


This  ended  my  personal  relations  with  Mr.  Cleve- 
land. Thereafter  we  did  not  speak  as  we  passed 
by.  He  was  a  hard  man  to  get  on  with.  Over- 
credulous,  though  by  no  means  excessive,  in  his 
likes,  very  tenacious  in  his  dislikes,  suspicious 
withal,  he  grew  during  his  second  term  in  the  White 
House,  exceedingly  "high  and  mighty,"  suggest- 
ing somewhat  the  "stuffed  prophet,"  of  Mr.  Dana's 
relentless  lambasting  and  verifying  my  insistence 
that  he  posed  rather  as  an  idol  to  be  worshiped, 

[143] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

than  a  leader  to  be  trusted  and  loved.  He  was  in 
truth  a  strong  man,  who,  sufficiently  mindful  of 
his  limitations  in  the  beginning,  grew  by  unexam- 
pled and  continued  success  overconfident  and  over- 
conscious  in  his  own  conceit.  He  had  a  real  desire 
to  serve  the  country.  But  he  was  apt  to  think  that 
he  alone  could  effectively  serve  it.  In  one  of  our 
spats  I  remember  saying  to  him,  "You  seem,  Mr. 
President,  to  think  you  are  the  only  pebble  on 
the  beach — the  one  honest  and  brave  man  in  the 
party — but  let  me  assure  you  of  my  own  knowl- 
edge that  there  are  others."  His  answer  was,  "Oh, 
you  go  to !" 

He  split  his  party  wide  open.  The  ostensible 
cause  was  the  money  issue.  But,  underlying  this, 
there  was  a  deal  of  personal  embitterment.  Had 
he  been  a  man  of  foresight — or  even  of  ordinary 
discernment — he  might  have  held  it  together  and 
with  it  behind  him  have  carried  the  gold  standard. 

I  had  contended  for  a  sound  currency  from  the 
outset  of  the  fiscal  contention,  fighting  first  the 
green-back  craze  and  then  the  free  silver  craze 
against  an  overwhelming  majority  in  the  West  and 
South,  nowhere  more  radically  relentless  than  in 
Kentucky.  Both  movements  had  their  origin  on 
[144] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

economic  fallacies  and  found  their  backing  in  dis- 
honest purpose  to  escape  honest  indebtedness. 

Through  Mr.  Cleveland  the  party  of  Jefferson, 
Jackson,  and  Tilden  was  converted  from  a  Demo- 
crat into  a  Populist,  falling  into  the  arms  of  Mr. 
Bryan,  whose  domination  proved  as  baleful  in  one 
way  as  Mr.  Cleveland's  had  been  in  another,  the 
final  result  shipwreck,  with  the  extinguishment  of 
all  but  the  label. 

Mr.  Bryan  was  a  young  man  of  notable  gifts  of 
speech  and  boundless  self-assertion.  When  he 
found  himself  well  in  the  saddle  he  began  to  rule 
despotically  and  to  ride  furiously.  A  party  leader 
more  short-sighted  could  hardly  be  imagined.  None 
of  his  judgments  came  true.  As  a  consequence  the 
Republicans  for  a  long  time  had  everything  their 
own  way,  and,  save  for  the  Taft-Roosevelt  quar- 
rel, might  have  held  their  power  indefinitely.  All 
history  tells  us  that  the  personal  equation  must  be 
reckoned  with  in  public  life.  Assuredly  it  cuts  no 
mean  figure  in  human  affairs.  And,  when  politi- 
cians fall  out — well — the  other  side  comes  in. 


[145] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-FIRST 

STEPHEN  FOSTEE,  THE  SONG  WRITER — A  FRIEND 
COMES  TO  THE  RESCUE  OF  HIS  ORIGINALITY — 
"MY  OLD  KENTUCKY  HOME"  AND  "OLD  FOLKS 
AT  HOME" — GENERAL  SHERMAN  AND  "MARCH- 
ING THROUGH  GEORGIA." 

I  HAVE  received  many  letters  touching  what  I 
said  a  little  while  ago  of  Stephen  Collins 
Foster,  the  song  writer.  In  that  matter  I  had,  and 
could  have  had,  no  unkindly  thought  or  purpose. 
The  story  of  the  musical  scrapbook  rested  not  with 
me,  but  as  I  stated,  upon  the  averment  of  Will  S. 
Hays,  a  rival  song  writer.  But  that  the  melody  of 
Old  Folks  at  Home  may  be  found  in  Schubert's 
posthumous  Rosemonde  admits  not  of  contradic- 
tion for  there  it  is,  and  this  would  seem  to  be  in 
some  sort  corroborative  evidence  of  the  truth  of 
Hays'  story. 

Among  these  letters  comes  one  from  Young  E. 
Allison  which  is  entitled  to  serious  consideration. 
[146] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Mr.  Allison  is  a  gentleman  of  the  first  order  of 
character  and  culture,  an  editor  and  a  musician, 
and  what  he  writes  cannot  fail  to  carry  with  it  very- 
great  weight.  I  need  make  no  apology  for  quoting 
him  at  length. 

"I  have  long  been  collecting  material  about 
Foster  from  his  birth  to  his  death,"  says  Mr. 
Allison,  "and  aside  from  his  weak  and  fatal  love  of 
drink,  which  developed  after  he  was  twenty-five, 
and  had  married,  his  life  was  one  continuous  de- 
votion to  the  study  of  music,  of  painting,  of  poetry 
and  of  languages;  in  point  of  fact,  of  all  the  arts 
that  appeal  to  one  who  feels  within  him  the  stir  of 
the  creative.  He  was,  quite  singularly  enough,  a 
fine  mathematician,  which  undoubtedly  aided  him 
in  the  study  of  music  as  a  science,  to  which  time  and 
balance  play  such  an  important  part.  In  fact,  I 
believe  it  was  the  mathematical  devil  in  his  brain 
that  came  to  hold  him  within  such  bare  and 
primitive  forms  of  composition  and  so,  to  some  ex- 
tent, to  delimit  the  wider  development  of  his  genius. 

"Now  as  to  Foster's  drinking  habits,  however 
unfortunate  they  proved  to  him  they  did  not  affect 
the  quality  of  his  art  as  he  bequeathed  it  to  us.  No 
one  cares  to  recall  the  unhappy  fortunes  of  Burns, 

[147] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

De  Musset,  Chopin  or — even  in  our  own  time — of 
O.  Henry,  and  others  who  might  be  named.  In 
none  of  their  productions  does  the  hectic  fever  of 
over-stimulation  show  itself.  No  purer,  gentler  or 
simpler  aspirations  were  ever  expressed  in  the  vary- 
ing forms  of  music  and  verse  than  flowed  from 
Foster's  pen,  even  as  penetrating  benevolence  came 
from  the  pen  of  O.  Henry,  embittered  and  solitary 
as  his  life  had  been.  Indeed  when  we  come  to  re- 
gard what  the  drinkers  of  history  have  done  for  the 
world  in  spite  of  the  artificial  stimulus  they  craved, 
we  may  say  with  Lincoln  as  Lincoln  said  of  Grant, 
'Send  the  other  generals  some  of  the  same  brand.' 
"Foster  was  an  aristocrat  of  aristocrats,  both  by 
birth  and  gifts.  He  inherited  the  blood  of  Richard 
Steele  and  of  the  Kemble  family,  noted  in  English 
letters  and  dramatic  annals.  To  these  artistic 
strains  he  added  undoubtedly  the  musical  tempera- 
ment of  an  Italian  grandmother  or  great-grand- 
mother. He  was  a  cousin  of  John  Rowan,  the  dis- 
tinguished Kentucky  lawyer  and  senator.  Of 
Foster's  family,  his  father,  his  brothers,  his  sisters 
were  all  notable  as  patriots,  as  pioneers  in  en- 
gineering, in  commerce  and  in  society.  One  of  his 
brothers  designed  and  built  the  early  Pennsylvania 
[148] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Railroad  system  and  died  executive  vice-president 
of  that  great  corporation.  Thus  he  was  born  to  the 
arts  and  to  social  distinction.  But,  like  many  men 
of  the  creative  temperament,  he  was  born  a  solitary, 
destined  to  live  in  a  land  of  dreams.  The  singular 
beauty  and  grace  of  his  person  and  countenance, 
the  charm  of  his  voice,  manner  and  conversation, 
were  for  the  most  part  familiar  to  the  limited  circle 
of  his  immediate  family  and  friends.  To  others  he 
was  reticent,  with  a  certain  hauteur  of  timidity, 
uvoiding  society  and  public  appearances  to  the  day 
of  his  death. 

"Now  those  are  the  facts  about  Foster.  They 
certainly  do  not  describe  the  'ne'er-do-well  of  a 
good  family'  who  hung  round  barrooms,  colored- 
minstrel  haunts  and  theater  entrances.  I  can  find 
only  one  incident  to  show  that  Foster  ever  went  to 
hear  his  own  songs  sung  in  public.  He  was  es- 
sentially a  solitary,  who,  while  keenly  observant  of 
and  entering  sympathizingly  into  the  facts  of  life, 
held  himself  aloof  from  immediate  contact  with  its 
crowded  stream.  He  was  solitary  from  sensitivity, 
not  from  bitterness  or  indifference.  He  made  a 
large  fortune  for  his  day  with  his  songs  and  was  a 
popular  idol. 

[149] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Let  us  come  now  to  the  gravamen  of  my  com- 
plaint. You  charge  on  the  authority  of  mere  gossip 
from  the  late  Will  S.  Hays,  that  Foster  did  not 
compose  his  own  music,  but  that  he  had  obtained 
a  collection  of  unpublished  manuscripts  by  an  un- 
named old  'German  musician  and  thus  dishonestly, 
by  pilfering  and  suppression'  palmed  off  upon  the 
public  themes  and  compositions  which  he  could  not 
himself  have  originated.  Something  like  this  has 
been  said  about  every  composer  and  writer,  big  and 
little,  whose  personality  and  habits  did  not  impress 
his  immediate  neighbors  as  implying  the  possession 
of  genius.  The  world  usually  expects  direct  in- 
heritance and  a  theatric  impressiveness  of  genius  in 
its  next-door  neighbor  before  it  accepts  the  proof 
of  his  works  alone.  For  that  reason  Napoleon's 
paternity  in  Corsica  was  ascribed  to  General 
Maboeuf,  and  Henry  Clay's  in  early  Kentucky  to 
Patrick  Henry.  That  legend  of  the  'poor,  un- 
known German  musician'  who  composed  in  poverty 
and  secrecy  the  deathless  songs  that  have  obsessed 
the  world  of  music  lovers,  has  been  told  of  number- 
less young  composers  on  their  way  to  fame,  but 
died  out  in  the  blaze  of  their  later  work.  I  have  no 
doubt  they  told  it  of  Foster,  as  they  did  also  of 
[150] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Hays.  And  Colonel  Hays  doubtless  repeated  it  to 
you  as  the  intimate  gossip  about  Foster. 

"I  have  an  article  written  by  Colonel  Hays  and 
published  in  and  cut  from  The  Courier-Journal 
some  twelve  years  after  the  composer's  death,  in 
which  he  sketches  the  life  and  work  of  Stephen  Col- 
lins Foster.  In  that  article  he  lays  especial  stress 
upon  the  surprising  originality  of  the  Foster 
themes  and  of  their  musical  setting.  He  praises 
their  distinct  American  or  rather  native  inspiration 
and  flavor,  and  describes  from  his  own  knowledge 
of  Foster  how  they  were  'written  from  his  heart.' 
No  mention  or  suggestion  in  it  of  any  German  or 
other  origin  for  any  of  those  melodies  that  the  world 
then  and  now  cherishes  as  American  in  costume,  but 
universal  in  appeal.  While  you  may  have  heard 
something  in  Schubert's  compositions  that  sug- 
gested something  in  Foster's  most  famous  song, 
still  I  venture  to  say  it  was  only  a  suggestion,  such 
as  often  arises  from  the  works  of  composers  of  the 
same  general  type.  Schubert  and  Foster  were  both 
young  sentimentalists  and  dreamers  who  must  have 
had  similar  dreams  that  found  expression  in  their 
similar  progressions. 

"The  German  musicians  from  whom  Foster  got 

[151] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

inspiration  to  work  were  Beethoven,  Gliick,  Weber, 
Mozart.  He  was  a  student  of  all  of  them  and  of 
the  Italian  school  also,  as  some  of  his  songs  show. 
Foster's  first  and  only  music  teacher — except  in  the 
'do-re-mi'  exercises  in  his  schoolboy  life — testifies 
that  Foster's  musical  apprehension  was  so  quick, 
his  intuitive  grasp  of  its  science  so  complete  that 
after  a  short  time  there  was  nothing  he  could  teach 
him  of  the  theory  of  composition;  that  his  pupil 
went  straight  to  the  masters  and  got  illustration 
and  discipline  for  himself. 

"This  was  to  be  expected  of  a  precocious  genius 
who  had  written  a  concerted  piece  for  flutes  at 
thirteen,  who  was  trying  his  wings  on  love  songs  at 
sixteen,  and  before  he  was  twenty-one  had  com- 
posed several  of  the  most  famous  of  his  American 
melodies,  among  them  Oh  Susannah,  Old  Dog  Tray 
and  Old  Uncle  Ned.  As  in  other  things  he  taught 
himself  music,  but  he  studied  it  ardently  at  the 
shrines  of  the  masters.  He  became  a  master  of  the 
art  of  song  writing.  If  anybody  cares  to  hunt  up 
the  piano  scores  that  Verdi  made  of  songs  from  his 
operas  in  the  days  of  Foster  he  will  find  that  the 
great  Italian  composer's  settings  were  quite  as  thin 
as  Foster's  and  exhibited  not  much  greater  art.  It 
[152] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

was  the  fault  of  the  times  on  the  piano,  not  of  the 
composers.  It  was  not  till  long  afterward  that  the 
color  capacities  of  the  piano  were  developed.  As 
Foster  was  no  pianist,  but  rather  a  pure  melodist, 
he  could  not  be  expected  to  surpass  his  times  in  the 
management  of  the  piano,  the  only  'orchestra'  he 
had.  It  will  not  do  to  regard  Foster  as  a  crude 
musician.  His  own  scores  reveal  him  as  the  most 
artful  of  'artless'  composers. 

"It  is  not  even  presumption  to  speak  of  him  in 
the  same  breath  with  Verdi.  The  breadth  and 
poignancy  of  Foster's  melodies  entitle  them  to  the 
highest  critical  respect,  as  they  have  received  world- 
wide appreciation  from  great  musicians  and  plain 
music  lovers.  Wherever  he  has  gone  he  has  reached 
the  popular  heart.  Here  in  the  United  States  he 
has  quickened  the  pulse  beats  of  four  generations. 
But  this  master  creator  of  a  country's  only  native 
songs  has  invariably  here  at  home  been  apologized 
for  as  a  sort  of  'cornfield  musician,'  a  mere  banjo 
strummer,  a  hanger-on  at  barrooms  where  minstrel 
quartets  rendered  his  songs  and  sent  the  hat  round. 
The  reflection  will  react  upon  his  country;  it  will 
not  detract  from  the  real  Foster  when  the  con- 
structive critic  appears  to  write  his  brief  and  un- 

[153] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

fortunate  life.  I  am  not  contending  that  he  was  a 
genius  of  the  highest  rank,  although  he  had  the  dis- 
tinction that  great  genius  nearly  always  achieves,  of 
creating  a  school  that  produced  many  imitators  and 
established  a  place  apart  for  itself  in  the  world's 
estimation.  In  ballad  writing  he  did  for  the  United 
States  what  Watteau  did  for  painting  in  France. 
As  Watteau  found  a  Flemish  school  in  France  and 
left  a  French  school  stamped  forever,  so  Foster 
found  the  United  States  a  home  for  imitations  of 
English,  Irish,  German  and  Italian  songs,  and  left 
a  native  ballad  form  and  melodic  strain  forever  im- 
pressed upon  it  as  pure  American. 

"He  was  like  Watteau  in  more  than  that. 
Watteau  took  the  elegancies  and  fripperies  of  the 
corrupt  French  court  and  fixed  them  in  art  im- 
mortal, as  if  the  moment  had  been  arrested  and  held 
in  actual  motion.  Foster  took  the  curious  and 
melancholy  spectacle  of  African  slavery  at  its 
height,  superimposed  by  the  most  elegant  and 
picturesque  social  manners  this  country  has  known, 
at  the  moment  the  institution  was  at  its  zenith.  He 
saw  the  glamor,  the  humor,  the  tragedy,  the  con- 
trasts, the  emotional  depths — that  lay  unplumbed 
beneath  it  all.  He  fixed  it  there  for  all  time,  for 
[154] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

all  hearts  and  minds  everywhere.  His  songs  are  not 
only  the  pictorial  canvas  of  that  time,  they  are  the 
emotional  history  of  the  times.  It  was  done  by  a 
boy  who  was  not  prophet  enough  to  foresee  the  end, 
or  philosopher  enough  to  demonstrate  the  condi- 
tions, but  who  was  born  with  the  intuition  to  feel  it 
all  and  set  it  forth  deeply  and  truly  from  every  as- 
pect. 

"While  Foster  wrote  many  comic  songs  there  is 
ever  in  them  something  of  the  melancholy  under- 
current that  has  been  detected  under  the  laces  and 
arabesques  of  Chopin's  nominally  frivolous  dances. 
Foster's  ballad  form  was  extremely  attenuated,  but 
the  melodic  content  filled  it  so  completely  that  it 
seems  to  strain  at  the  bounds  and  must  be  repeated 
and  repeated  to  furnish  full  gratification  to  the  ear. 
His  form  when  compared  with  the  modern  ballad's 
amplitude  seems  like  a  Tanagra  figurine  beside  a 
Michelangelo  statue — but  the  figurine  is  as  fine  in 
its  scope  as  the  statue  is  in  the  greater. 

"I  hope  you  will  think  Foster  over  and  revise 
him  'upward.'  " 

All  of  us  need  to  be  admonished  to  speak  no  evil 
of  the  dead.  I  am  trying  in  Looking  Backward  to 
square  the  adjuration  with  the  truth.     Perhaps  I 

[155] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

should  speak  only  of  that  which  is  known  directly 
to  myself.  It  costs  me  nothing  to  accept  this  state- 
ment of  Mr.  Allison  and  to  incorporate  it  as  an 
essential  part  of  the  record  as  far  as  it  relates  to 
the  most  famous  and  in  his  day  the  most  beloved 
of  American  song  writers. 

Once  at  a  Grand  Army  encampment  General 
Sherman  and  I  were  seated  together  on  the  plat- 
form when  the  band  began  to  play  Marching 
Through  Georgia,  when  the  general  said  rather  im- 
patiently: "I  wish  I  had  a  dollar  for  every  time  I 
have  had  to  listen  to  that  blasted  tune." 

And  I  answered:  "Well,  there  is  another  tune 
about  which  I  might  say  the  same  thing,"  meaning 
My  Old  Kentucky  Home. 

Neither  of  us  was  quite  sincere.  Both  were  un- 
consciously pleased  to  hear  the  familiar  strains.  At 
an  open-air  fiesta  in  Barcelona  some  American 
friends  who  made  their  home  there  put  the  band- 
master up  to  breaking  forth  with  the  dear  old  mel- 
ody as  I  came  down  the  aisle,  and  I  was  mightily 
pleased.  Again  at  a  concert  in  Lucerne,  the  band, 
playing  a  potpourri  of  Swiss  songs,  interpolated 
Kentucky's  national  anthem  and  the  group  of  us 
stood  up  and  sang  the  chorus. 
[156] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  do  not  wonder  that  men  march  joyously  to 
battle  and  death  to  drum  and  fife  squeaking  and 
rattling  The  Girl  I  Left  Behind  Me.  It  may  be  a 
long  way  to  Tipperary,  but  it  is  longer  to  the  end 
of  the  tether  that  binds  the  heart  of  man  to  the 
cradle  songs  of  his  nativity.  With  the  cradle  songs 
of  America  the  name  of  Stephen  Collins  Foster 
"is  immortal  bound,"  and  I  would  no  more  dis- 
honor his  memory  than  that  of  Robert  Burns  or 
the  author  of  The  Star-Spangled  Banner. 


[157] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-SECOND 

THEODORE    ROOSEVELT — HIS   PROBLEMATIC    CHARAC- 
TER  HE    OFFERS    ME    AN    APPOINTMENT — HIS 

BONHOMIE     AND     CHIVALRY — PROUD     OF     HIS 

REBEL  KIN. 

I 

IT  is  not  an  easy  nor  yet  a  wholly  congenial  task 
to  write— truthfully,  intelligently  and  frankly 
to  write— about  Theodore  Roosevelt.  He  belonged 
to  the  category  of  problematical  characters.  A 
born  aristocrat,  he  at  no  time  took  the  trouble  to 
pose  as  a  special  friend  of  the  people;  a  born  leader, 
he  led  with  a  rough  unsparing  hand.  He  was  the 
soul  of  controversy.  To  one  who  knew  him  from 
his  childhood  as  I  did,  always  loving  him  and  rarely 
agreeing  with  him,  it  was  plain  to  see  how  his  most 
obvious  faults  commended  him  to  the  multitude  and 
made  for  a  popularity  that  never  quite  deserted 

him. 

As  poorly  as  I  rate  the  reign  of  majorities  I 
[158] 


"MAKSE  HENRY" 

prefer  it  to  the  one-man  power,  either  elective  or 
dynastic.  The  scheme  of  a  third  term  in  the  presi- 
dency for  General  Grant  seemed  to  me  a  conspiracy 
though  with  many  of  its  leaders  I  was  on  terms  of 
affectionate  intimacy.  I  fought  and  helped  to  kill 
in  1896  the  unborn  scheme  to  give  Mr.  Cleveland  a 
third  term.  Inevitably  as  the  movement  for  the  re- 
tention of  Theodore  Roosevelt  beyond  the  time  al- 
ready fixed  began  to  show  itself  in  1907,  my  pen 
was  primed  against  it  and  I  wrote  variously  and 
voluminously. 

There  appeared  in  one  of  the  periodicals  for 
January,  1908,  a  sketch  of  mine  which  but  for  a 
statement  issued  concurrently  from  the  White 
House  would  have  attracted  more  attention  than  it 
did.  In  this  I  related  how  at  Washington  just  be- 
fore the  War  of  Sections  I  had  a  musical  pal — the 
niece  of  a  Southern  senator — who  had  studied  in 
Paris,  been  a  protegee  of  the  Empress  Eugenie  and 
become  an  out-and-out  imperialist.  Louis  Napoleon 
was  her  ideal  statesman.  She  not  only  hated  the 
North  but  accepted  as  gospel  truth  all  the  mislead- 
ing theories  of  the  South:  that  cotton  was  king; 
that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution;  that  in  any 

[159] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

enterprise  one  Southern  man  was  a  match  for  six 
Northern  men. 

On  these  points  we  had  many  contentions.  When 
the  break  came  she  went  South  with  her  family. 
The  last  I  saw  of  her  was  crossing  Long  Bridge  in 
a  lumbering  family  carriage  waving  a  tiny  Con- 
federate flag. 

Forty-five  years  intervened.  I  had  heard  of  her 
from  time  to  time  wandering  aimlessly  over  Eu- 
rope, but  had  not  met  her  until  the  preceding  winter 
in  a  famous  Southern  homestead.  There  she  led 
me  into  a  rose  garden,  and  seated  beneath  its  clust- 
ered greeneries  she  said  with  an  air  of  triumph, 
"Now  you  see,  my  dear  old  friend,  that  I  was  right 
and  you  were  wrong  all  the  time." 

Startled,  and  altogether  forgetful,  I  asked  in 
what  way. 

"Why,"  she  answered,  "at  last  the  South  is  com- 
ing to  its  own." 

Still  out  of  rapport  with  her  thought  I  said  some- 
thing about  the  obliteration  of  sectionalism  and  the 
arrival  of  political  freedom  and  general  prosperity. 
She  would  none  of  this. 

"I  mean,"  she  abruptly  interposed,  "that  the  son 
[160] 


HENRY    VATTEliSOX     (PHOTOGRAPH    TAKEN    IN    FLORIDA) 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

of  Martha  Bullock  has  come  to  his  own  and  he  will 
rescue  us  from  the  mudsills  of  the  North." 

She  spoke  as  if  our  former  discussions  had  been 
but  yesterday.  Then  I  gave  her  the  right  of  way, 
interjecting  a  query  now  and  then  to  give  emphasis 
to  her  theme,  while  she  unfolded  the  plan  which 
seemed  to  her  so  simple  and  easy;  God's  own  will; 
the  national  destiny,  first  a  third  term,  and  then 
life  tenure  a,  la  Louis  Napoleone  for  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  the  son  of  Martha  Bullock,  the  nephew 
of  our  great  admiral,  who  was  to  redress  all  the 
wrongs  of  the  South  and  bring  the  Yankees  to  their 
just  deserts  at  last. 

"If,"  I  ended  my  sketch,  "out  of  the  mouths  of 
babes  and  sucklings,  why  not  out  of  the  brain  of 
this  crazed  old  woman  of  the  South?" 

Early  in  the  following  April  I  came  from  my 
winter  home  in  Florida  to  the  national  capital,  and 
the  next  day  was  called  by  the  President  to  the 
White  House. 

"The  first  thing  I  want  to  ask,"  said  he,  "is 
whether  that  old  woman  was  a  real  person  or  a 
figment  of  your  imagination?" 

"She  was  a  figment  of  my  imagination,"  I  an- 
swered, "but  you  put  her  out  of  business  with  a 

[161] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

single  punch.  Why  didn't  you  hold  back  your 
statement  a  bit?  If  you  had  done  so  there  was  room 
for  lots  of  sport  ahead." 

He  was  in  no  mood  for  joking.  "Henry  Watter- 
son,"  he  said,  "I  want  to  talk  to  you  seriously  about 
this  third-term  business.  I  will  not  deny  that  I 
have  thought  of  the  thing — thought  of  it  a  great 
deal."  Then  he  proceeded  to  relate  from  his  point 
of  view  the  state  of  the  country  and  the  immediate 
situation.  He  spoke  without  reserve  of  his  rela- 
tions to  the  nearest  associated  public  men,  of  what 
were  and  what  were  not  his  personal  and  party 
obligations,  his  attitude  toward  the  political  ques- 
tions of  the  moment,  and  ended  by  saying,  "What 
do  you  make  of  all  this?" 

"Mr.  President,"  I  replied,  "you  know  that  I  am 
your  friend,  and  as  your  friend  I  tell  you  that  if 
you  go  out  of  here  the  fourth  of  next  March  plac- 
ing your  friend  Taft  in  your  place  you  will  make 
a  good  third  to  Washington  and  Lincoln ;  but  if  you 
allow  these  wild  fellows  willy-nilly  to  induce  you, 
in  spite  of  your  declaration,  to  accept  the  nomina- 
tion, substantially  for  a  third  term,  all  issues  will 
be  merged  in  that  issue,  and  in  my  judgment  you 
will  not  carry  a  state  in  the  Union." 
[162] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

As  if  much  impressed  and  with  a  show  of  feeling 
he  said:  "It  may  be  so.  At  any  rate  I  will  not  do 
it.  If  the  convention  nominates  me  I  will  promptly 
send  my  declination.  If  it  nominates  me  and  ad- 
journs I  will  call  it  together  again  and  it  will  have 
to  name  somebody  else." 

As  an  illustration  of  the  implacability  which  pur- 
sued him  I  may  mention  that  among  many  leading 
Republicans  to  whom  I  related  the  incident  most 
of  them  discredited  his  sincerity,  one  of  them — a 
man  of  national  importance — expressing  the 
opinion  that  all  along  he  was  artfully  playing  for 
the  nomination.  This  I  do  not  believe.  Perhaps  he 
was  never  quite  fixed  in  his  mind.  The  presidency 
is  a  wondrous  lure.  Once  out  of  the  White  House 
— what  else  and  what ? 


II 

Upon  his  return  from  one  of  his  several  foreign 
journeys  a  party  of  some  hundred  or  more  of  his 
immediate  personal  friends  gave  him  a  private  din- 
ner at  a  famous  uptown  restaurant.  I  was  placed 
next  him  at  table.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
we  had  all  sorts  of  a  good  time — he  Caesar  and  I 

[163] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Brutus — the  prevailing  joke  the  entente  between 
the  two. 

"I  think,"  he  began  his  very  happy  speech,  "that 
I  am  the  bravest  man  that  ever  lived,  for  here  I 
have  been  sitting  three  hours  by  the  side  of  Brutus 
— have  repeatedly  seen  him  clutch  his  knife — with- 
out the  blink  of  an  eye  or  the  turn  of  a  feature." 

To  which  in  response  when  my  turn  came  I  said : 
"You  gentlemen  seem  to  be  surprised  that  there 
should  be  so  perfect  an  understanding  between  our 
guest  and  myself.  But  there  is  nothing  new  or 
strange  in  that.  It  goes  back,  indeed,  to  his  cradle 
and  has  never  been  disturbed  throughout  the  inter- 
vening years  of  political  discussion — sometimes 
acrimonious.  At  the  top  of  the  acclivity  of  his 
amazing  career — in  the  very  plenitude  of  his  emi- 
nence and  power — let  me  tell  you  that  he  offered 
me  one  of  the  most  honorable  and  distinguished 
appointments  within  his  gift." 

"Tell  them  about  that,  Marse  Henry,"  said  he. 

"With  your  permission,  Mr.  President,  I  will," 
I  said,  and  continued:  "The  centenary  of  the 
West  Point  Military  Academy  was  approaching. 
I  was  at  dinner  with  my  family  at  a  hotel  in  Wash- 
ington when  General  Corbin  joined  us.  'Will  you,' 
[164] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

he  abruptly  interjected,  'accept  the  chairmanship 
of  the  board  of  visitors  to  the  academy  this  coming 
June?' 

"  'What  do  you  want  of  me?'  I  asked. 

"  'It  is  the  academy's  centenary,  which  we  pro- 
pose to  celebrate,  and  we  want  an  orator.' 

"  'General  Corbin,'  said  I,  'you  are  coming  at 
me  in  a  most  enticing  way.  I  know  all  about  West 
Point.  Here  at  Washington  I  grew  up  with  it. 
I  have  been  fighting  legislative  battles  for  the  Army 
all  my  life.  That  you  Yankees  should  come  to  a 
ragged  old  rebel  like  me  for  such  a  service  is  a 
distinction  indeed,  and  I  feel  immensely  honored. 
But  which  page  of  the  court  calendar  made  you  a 
plural?    Whom  do  you  mean  by  "we"?' 

"  'Why,'  he  replied  in  serio-comic  vein,  'the 
President,  the  Secretary  of  War  and  Me,  myself.' 

"I  promised  him  to  think  it  over  and  give  him 
an  answer.  Next  day  I  received  a  letter  from  the 
President,  making  the  formal  official  tender  and 
expressing  the  hope  that  I  would  not  decline  it. 
Yet  how  could  I  accept  it  with  the  work  ahead  of 
me?  It  was  certain  that  if  I  became  a  part  of  the 
presidential  junket  and  passed  a  week  in  the  de- 
lightful company  promised  me,  I  would  be  unfit 

[165] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

for  the  loyal  duty  I  owed  my  belongings  and  my 
party,  and  so  reluctantly — more  reluctantly  than 
I  can  tell  you — I  declined,  obliging  them  to  send 
for  Gen.  Horace  Porter  and  bring  him  over  from 
across  the  ocean,  where  he  was  ably  serving  as 
Ambassador  to  France.  I  need  not  add  how  well 
that  gifted  and  versatile  gentleman  discharged  the 
distinguished  and  pleasing  duty." 

in 

The  last  time  I  met  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  but 
a  little  while  before  his  death.  A  small  party  of 
us,  Editor  Moore,  of  Pittsburgh,  and  Mr.  Riggs, 
of  the  New  York  Central,  at  his  invitation  had  a 
jolly  midday  breakfast,  extending  far  into  the 
afternoon.  I  never  knew  him  happier  or  heartier. 
His  jocund  spirit  rarely  failed  him.  He  enjoyed 
life  and  wasted  no  time  on  trivial  worries,  hit-or- 
miss,  the  keynote  to  his  thought. 

The  Dutch  blood  of  Holland  and  the  cavalier 
blood  of  England  mingled  in  his  veins  in  fair  pro- 
portion. He  was  especially  proud  of  the  uncle,  his 
mother's  brother,  the  Southern  admiral,  head  of  the 
Confederate  naval  organization  in  Europe,  who 
had  fitted  out  the  rebel  cruisers  and  sent  them  to 
[166] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

sea.  And  well  he  might  be,  for  a  nobler  American 
never  lived.  At  the  close  of  the  War«of  Sections 
Admiral  Bullock  had  in  his  possession  some  half 
million  dollars  of  Confederate  money.  Instead  of 
appropriating  this  to  his  own  use,  as  without  re- 
mark or  hindrance  he  might  have  done,  he  turned 
it  over  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
and  died  a  poor  man. 

The  inconsistencies  and  quarrels  in  which  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  was  now  and  again  involved  were 
largely  temperamental.  His  mind  was  of  that  or- 
der which  is  prone  to  believe  what  it  wants  to  be- 
lieve. He  did  not  take  much  time  to  think.  He 
leaped  at  conclusions,  and  from  his  premise  his  con- 
clusion was  usually  sound.  His  tastes  were  do- 
mestic, his  pastime,  when  not  at  his  books,  field 
sports. 

He  was  hot  what  might  be  called  convivial, 
though  fond  of  good  company — very  little  wine 
affecting  him — so  that  a  certain  self-control  became 
second  nature  to  him. 

To  be  sure,  he  had  no  conscientious  or  doctrinal 
scruples  about  a  third  term.  He  had  found  the 
White  House  a  congenial  abode,  had  accepted  the 
literal  theory  that  his  election  in  1908  would  not 

[167] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

imply  a  third  but  a  second  term,  and  he  wanted  to 
remain.  In  point  of  fact  I  have  an  impression  that, 
barring  Jackson  and  Polk,  most  of  those  who  have 
got  there  were  loath  to  give  it  up.  We  know  that 
Grant  was,  and  I  am  sure  that  Cleveland  was. 
We  owe  a  great  debt  to  Washington,  because  if  a 
third  why  not  a  fourth  term  ?  And  then  life  tenure 
after  the  manner  of  the  Caesars  and  Cromwells  of 
history,  and  especially  the  Latin- Americans — Boli- 
var, Rosas  and  Diaz? 

Away  back  in  1873,  after  a  dinner,  Mr.  Blaine 
took  me  into  his  den  and  told  me  that  it  was  no 
longer  a  surmise  but  a  fact  that  the  group  about 
General  Grant,  who  had  just  been  reelected  by  an 
overwhelming  majority,  was  maneuvering  for  a 
third  term.  To  me  this  was  startling,  incredible. 
Returning  to  my  hotel  I  saw  a  light  still  burning 
in  the  room  of  Senator  Morton,  of  Indiana,  and 
rapping  at  the  door  I  was  bidden  to  enter.  With- 
out mentioning  how  it  had  reached  me,  I  put  the 
proposition  to  him.  "Certainly,"  he  said,  "it  is 
true." 

The  next  day,  in  a  letter  to  the  Courier-Journal, 
I  reduced  what  I  had  heard  to  writing.  Reading 
this  over  it  seemed  so  sensational  that  I  added  a 
[168] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

closing  paragraph,  meant  to  qualify  what  I  had 
written  and  to  imply  that  I  had  not  gone  quite  daft. 

"These  things,"  I  wrote,  "may  sound  queer  to  the 
ear  of  the  country.  They  may  have  visited  me  in 
my  dreams ;  they  may,  indeed,  have  come  to  me  be- 
twixt the  sherry  and  the  champagne,  but  neverthe- 
less I  do  aver  that  they  are  buzzing  about  here  in 
the  minds  of  many  very  serious  and  not  unimpor- 
tant persons." 

Never  was  a  well-intentioned  scribe  so  berated 
and  ridiculed  as  I,  never  a  simple  news  gatherer  so 
discredited.  Democratic  and  Republican  newspa- 
pers vied  with  one  another  which  could  say  Grossest 
things  and  laugh  loudest.  One  sentence  especially 
caught  the  newspaper  risibilities  of  the  time,  and  it 
was  many  a  year  before  the  phrase  "between  the 
sherry  and  the  champagne"  ceased  to  pursue  me. 
That  any  patriotic  American,  twice  elevated  to  the 
presidency,  could  want  a  third  term,  could  have  the 
hardihood  to  seek  one  was  inconceivable.  My  let- 
ter was  an  insult  to  General  Grant  and  proof  of 
my  own  lack  of  intelligence  and  restraint.  They 
lammed  me,  laughed  at  me,  good  and  strong.  On 
each  successive  occasion  of  recurrence  I  have  en- 
countered the  same  criticism. 

[169 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-THIRD 

THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  JOURNALIST — THE  NEWSPAPER 
AND  THE  STAGE JOSEPH  JEFFERSON HIS  PER- 
SONAL AND  ARTISTIC  CAREER MODEST  CHAR- 
ACTER AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF 


THE  journalist  and  the  player  have  some 
things  in  common.  Each  turns  night  into 
day.  I  have  known  rather  intimately  all  the  emi- 
nent English-speaking  actors  of  my  time  from 
Henry  Irving  and  Charles  Wyndham  to  Edwin 
Booth  and  Joseph  Jefferson,  from  Charlotte  Cush- 
man  to  Helena  Modjeska.  No  people  are  quite  so 
interesting  as  stage  people. 

During  nearly  fifty  years  my  life  and  the  life 
of  Joseph  Jefferson  ran  close  upon  parallel  lines. 
He  was  eleven  years  my  senior;  but  after  the  des- 
ultory acquaintance  of  a  man  and  a  boy  we  came 
together  under  circumstances  which  obliterated  the 
[170] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

disparity  of  age  and  established  between  us  a  last- 
ing bond  of  affection.  His  wife,  Margaret,  had 
died,  and  he  was  passing  through  Washington  with 
the  little  brood  of  children  she  had  left  him. 

It  made  the  saddest  spectacle  I  had  ever  seen. 
As  I  recall  it  after  more  than  sixty  years,  the  scene 
of  silent  grief,  of  unutterable  helplessness,  has  still 
a  haunting  power  over  me,  the  oldest  lad  not  eight 
years  of  age,  the  youngest  a  girl  baby  in  arms,  the 
young  father  aghast  before  the  sudden  tragedy 
which  had  come  upon  him.  There  must  have  been 
something  in  my  sympathy  which  drew  him  toward 
me,  for  on  his  return  a  few  months  later  he  sought 
me  out  and  we  fell  into  the  easy  intercourse  of  es- 
tablished relations. 

I  was  recovering  from  an  illness,  and  every  day 
he  would  come  and  read  by  my  bedside.  I  had  not 
then  lost  the  action  of  one  of  my  hands,  putting  an 
end  to  a  course  of  musical  study  I  had  hoped  to 
develop  into  a  career.  He  was  infinitely  fond  of 
music  and  sufficiently  familiar  with  the  old  masters 
to  understand  and  enjoy  them.  He  was  an  artist 
through  and  through,  possessing  a  sweet  nor  yet  an 
uncultivated  voice — a  blend  between  a  low  tenor 
and  a  high  baritone — I  was  almost  about  to  write 

[171] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

a  "contralto,"  it  was  so  soft  and  liquid.  Its  tones 
in  speech  retained  to  the  last  their  charm.  Who 
that  heard  them  shall  ever  forget  them? 

Early  in  1861  my  friend  Jefferson  came  to  me 
and  said:  "There  is  going  to  be  a  war  of  the  sec- 
tions. I  am  not  a  warrior.  I  am  neither  a  North- 
erner nor  a  Southerner.  I  cannot  bring  myself  to 
engage  in  bloodshed,  or  to  take  sides.  I  have  near 
and  dear  ones  North  and  South.  I  am  going  away 
and  I  shall  stay  away  until  the  storm  blows  over. 
It  may  seem  to  you  unpatriotic,  and  it  is,  I  know, 
unheroic.  I  am  not  a  hero ;  I  am,  I  hope,  an  artist. 
My  world  is  the  world  of  art,  and  I  must  be  true 
to  that;  it  is  my  patriotism,  my  religion.  I  can  do 
no  manner  of  good  here,  and  I  am  going  away." 

II 

At  that  moment  statesmen  were  hopefully  esti- 
mating the  chances  of  a  peaceful  adjustment  and 
solution  of  the  sectional  controversy.  With  the 
prophet  instinct  of  the  artist  he  knew  better. 
Though  at  no  time  taking  an  active  interest  in  poli- 
tics or  giving  expression  to  party  bias  of  any  kind, 
his  personal  associations  led  him  into  a  familiar 
knowledge  of  the  trend  of  political  opinion  and  the 
[172] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

portent  of  public  affairs,  and  I  can  truly  say  that 
during  the  fifty  years  that  passed  thereafter  I  never 
discussed  any  topic  of  current  interest  or  moment 
with  him  that  he  did  not  throw  upon  it  the  side 
lights  of  a  luminous  understanding,  and  at  the  same 
time  an  impartial  and  intelligent  judgment. 

His  mind  was  both  reflective  and  radiating.  His 
humor  though  perennial  was  subdued ;  his  wit  keen 
and  spontaneous,  never  acrid  or  wounding.  His 
speech  abounded  with  unconscious  epigram.  He 
had  his  beliefs  and  stood  by  them ;  but  he  was  never 
aggressive.  Cleaner  speech  never  fell  from  the  lips 
of  man.  I  never  heard  him  use  a  profanity.  We 
once  agreed  between  ourselves  to  draw  a  line  across 
the  salacious  stories  so  much  in  vogue  during  our 
day;  the  wit  must  exceed  the  dirt;  where  the  dirt 
exceeded  the  wit  we  would  none  of  it. 

He  was  a  singularly  self-respecting  man;  genu- 
inely a  modest  man.  The  actor  is  supposed  to  be 
so  familiar  with  the  pubic  as  to  be  proof  against 
surprises.  Before  his  audience  he  must  be  master 
of  himself,  holding  the  situation  and  his  art  by  the 
firmest  grip.  He  must  simulate,  not  experience 
emotion,  the  effect  referable  to  the  seeming,  never 
to  the  actuality  involving  the  realization. 

[173] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Mr.  Jefferson  held  to  this  doctrine  and  applied 
it  rigorously.  On  a  certain  occasion  he  was  playing 
Caleb  Plummer.  In  the  scene  between  the  old  toy- 
maker  and  his  blind  daughter,  when  the  father  dis- 
covers the  dreadful  result  of  his  dissimulation — an 
awkward  hitch ;  and,  the  climax  quite  thwarted,  the 
curtain  came  down.    I  was  standing  at  the  wings. 

"Did  you  see  that?"  he  said  as  he  brushed  by  me, 
going  to  his  dressing-room. 

"No,"  said  I,  following  him.    "What  was  it?" 

He  turned,  his  eyes  still  wet  and  his  voice  choked. 
"I  broke  down,"  said  he;  "completely  broke  down. 
I  turned  away  from  the  audience  to  recover  my- 
self.   But  I  failed  and  had  the  curtain  rung." 

The  scene  had  been  spoiled  because  the  actor  had 
been  overcome  by  a  sudden  flood  of  real  feeling, 
whereas  he  was  to  render  by  his  art  the  feeling  of  a 
fictitious  character  and  so  to  communicate  this  to 
his  audience.  Caleb's  cue  was  tears,  but  not  Jef- 
ferson's. 

On  another  occasion  I  saw  his  self-possession 
tried  in  a  different  way.  We  were  dining  with  a 
gentleman  who  had  overpartaken  of  his  own  hos- 
pitality. Mr.  Murat  Halstead  was  of  the  company. 
There  was  also  a  German  of  distinction,  whose 
[174] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

knowledge  of  English  was  limited.  The  Rip  Van 
Winkle  craze  was  at  its  height.  After  sufficiently 
impressing  the  German  with  the  rare  opportunity 
he  was  having  in  meeting  a  man  so  famous  as  Mr. 
Jefferson,  our  host,  encouraged  by  Mr.  Halstead, 
and  I  am  afraid  not  discouraged  by  me,  began  to 
urge  Mr.  Jefferson  to  give  us,  as  he  said,  "a  touch 
of  his  mettle,"  and  failing  to  draw  the  great  come- 
dian out  he  undertook  himself  to  give  a  few  de- 
scriptive passages  from  the  drama  which  was  carry- 
ing the  town  by  storm.  Poor  Jefferson!  He  sat 
like  an  awkward  boy,  helpless  and  blushing,  the 
German  wholly  unconscious  of  the  fun  or  even  com- 
prehending just  what  was  happening — Halstead 
and  I  maliciously,  mercilessly  enjoying  it. 

in 

I  never  heard  Mr.  Jefferson  make  a  recitation 
or,  except  in  the  singing  of  a  song  before  his  voice 
began  to  break,  make  himself  a  part  of  any  private 
entertainment  other  than  that  of  a  spectator  and 
guest. 

He  shrank  from  personal  displays  of  every  sort. 
Even  in  his  younger  days  he  rarely  "gagged,"  or 
interpolated,  upon  the  stage.    Yet  he  did  not  lack 

[175] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

for  a  ready  wit.  One  time  during  the  final  act  of 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  a  young  countryman  in  the  gal- 
lery was  so  carried  away  that  he  quite  lost  his  bear- 
ings and  seemed  to  be  about  to  climb  over  the  outer 
railing.  The  audience,  spellbound  by  the  actor, 
nevertheless  saw  the  rustic,  and  its  attention  was 
being  divided  between  the  two  when  Jefferson 
reached  that  point  in  the  action  of  the  piece  where 
Rip  is  amazed  by  the  docility  of  his  wife  under  the 
ill  usage  of  her  second  husband.  He  took  in  the 
situation  at  a  glance. 

Casting  his  eye  directly  upon  the  youth  in  the 
gallery,  he  uttered  the  lines  as  if  addressing  them 
directly  to  him,  "Well,  I  would  never  have  believed 
it  if  I  had  not  seen  it." 

The  poor  fellow,  startled,  drew  back  from  his 
perilous  position,  and  the  audience  broke  into  a 
storm  of  applause. 

Joseph  Jefferson  was  a  Swedenborgian  in  his  re- 
ligious belief.  At  one  time  too  extreme  a  belief  in 
spiritualism  threatened  to  cloud  his  sound,  whole- 
some understanding.  As  he  grew  older  and  hap- 
pier and  passed  out  from  the  shadow  of  his  early 
tragedy  he  fell  away  from  the  more  sinister  influ- 
ence the  supernatural  had  attained  over  his  imagi- 
[176] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

nation.  One  time  in  Washington  I  had  him  to 
breakfast  to  meet  the  Chief  Justice  and  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Matthews  and  Mr.  Carlisle,  the  newly-elected 
Speaker  of  the  House.  It  was  a  rainy  Sunday,  and 
it  was  in  my  mind  to  warn  him  that  our  company 
was  made  up  of  hard-headed  lawyers  not  apt  to  be 
impressed  by  fairy  tales  and  ghost  stories,  and  to 
suggest  that  he  cut  the  spiritualism  in  case  the  con- 
versation fell,  as  was  likely,  into  the  speculative. 
I  forgot,  or  something  hindered,  and,  sure  enough, 
the  question  of  second  sight  and  mind  reading  came 
up,  and  I  said  to  myself:  "Lord,  now  we'll  have  it." 
But  it  was  my  kinsman,  Stanley  Matthews,  who 
led  off  with  a  clairvoyant  experience  in  his  law  prac- 
tice. I  began  to  be  reassured.  Mr.  Carlisle  fol- 
lowed with  a  most  mathematical  account  of  some 
hobgoblins  he  had  encountered  in  his  law  practice. 
Finally  the  Chief  Justice,  Mr.  Waite,  related  a 
series  of  incidents  so  fantastic  and  incredible,  yet 
detailed  with  the  precision  and  lucidity  of  a  master 
of  plain  statement,  as  fairly  to  stagger  the  most 
believing  ghostseer.  Then  I  said  to  myself  again: 
"Let  her  go,  Joe,  no  matter  what  you  tell  now  you 
will  fall  below  the  standard  set  by  these  professional 
perfecters  of  pure  reason,  and  are  safe  to  do  your 

[177] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

best,  or  your  worst."    I  think  he  held  his  own,  how- 
ever. 

IV 

Joseph  Jefferson  came  to  his  artistic  spurs  slowly 
but  surely,  being  nearly  thirty  years  of  age  when 
he  got  his  chance,  and  therefore  wholly  equal  to  it 
and  prepared  for  it. 

William  E.  Burton  stood  and  had  stood  for 
twenty-five  years  the  recognized,  the  reigning  king 
of  comedy  in  America.  He  was  a  master  of  his 
craft  as  well  as  a  leader  in  society  and  letters.  To 
look  at  him  when  he  came  upon  the  stage  was  to 
laugh ;  yet  he  commanded  tears  almost  as  readily 
as  laughter.  In  New  York  City  particularly  he 
ruled  the  roost,  and  could  and  did  do  that  which 
had  cost  another  his  place.  He  began  to  take  too 
many  liberties  with  the  public  favor  and,  truth  to 
say,  was  beginning  to  be  both  coarse  and  careless. 
People  were  growing  restive  under  ministrations 
which  were  at  times  little  less  than  impositions  upon 
their  forbearance.  They  wanted  something  if  pos- 
sible as  strong,  but  more  refined,  and  in  the  per- 
son of  the  leading  comedy  man  of  Laura  Keene's 
company,  a  young  actor  by  the  name  of  Jefferson, 
they  got  it. 
[178] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Both  Mr.  Sothern  and  Mr.  Jefferson  have  told 
the  story  of  Tom  Taylor's  extravaganza,  "Our 
American  Cousin,"  in  which  the  one  as  Dundreary, 
the  other  as  Asa  Trenchard,  rose  to  almost  instant 
popularity  and  fame.  I  shall  not  repeat  it  except 
to  say  that  Jefferson's  Asa  Trenchard  was  unlike 
any  other  the  English  or  American  stage  has 
known.  He  played  the  raw  Yankee  boy,  not  in 
low  comedy  at  all,  but  made  him  innocent  and  igno- 
rant as  a  well-born  Green  Mountain  lad  might  be, 
never  a  bumpkin;  and  in  the  scene  when  Asa  tells 
his  sweetheart  the  bear  story  and  whilst  pretending 
to  light  his  cigar  burns  the  will,  he  left  not  a  dry 
eye  in  the  house. 

New  York  had  never  witnessed,  never  divined 
anything  in  pathos  and  humor  so  exquisite.  Bur- 
ton and  his  friends  struggled  for  a  season,  but  Jef- 
ferson completely  knocked  them  out.  Even  had 
Burton  lived,  and  had  there  been  no  diverting  war 
of  sections  to  drown  all  else,  Jefferson  would  have 
come  to  his  growth  and  taken  his  place  as  the  first 
serio-comic  actor  of  his  time. 

Rip  Van  Winkle  was  an  evolution.  Jefferson's 
half-brother,  Charles  Burke,  had  put  together  a 
sketchy  melodrama  in  two  acts  and  had  played  in 

[179] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

it,  was  playing  in  it  when  he  died.  After  his 
Trenchard,  Jefferson  turned  himself  loose  in  all 
sorts  of  parts,  from  Diggory  to  Mazeppa,  a  famous 
burlesque,  which  he  did  to  a  turn,  imitating  the 
mock  heroics  of  the  feminine  horse  marines,  so  pop- 
ular in  the  equestrian  drama  of  the  period,  Adah 
Isaacs  Menken,  the  beautiful  and  ill-fated,  at  their 
head.  Then  he  produced  a  version  of  Nicholas 
Nickleby,  in  which  his  Newman  Noggs  took  a  more 
ambitious  flight.  These,  however,  were  but  the 
avant-couriers  of  the  immortal  Rip. 

Charles  Burke's  piece  held  close  to  the  lines  of 
Irving's  legend.  When  the  vagabond  returns 
from  the  mountains  after  the  twenty  years'  sleep 
Gretchen  is  dead.  The  apex  is  reached  when  the 
old  man,  sitting  dazed  at  a  table  in  front  of  the 
tavern  in  the  village  of  Falling  Water,  asks  after 
Derrick  Van  Beekman  and  Nick  Vedder  and  other 
of  his  cronies.  At  last,  half  twinkle  of  humor  and 
half  glimmer  of  dread,  he  gets  himself  to  the  point 
of  asking  after  Dame  Van  Winkle,  and  is  told  that 
she  has  been  dead  these  ten  years.  Then  like  a 
flash  came  that  wonderful  Jeffersonian  change  of 
facial  expression,  and  as  the  white  head  drops  upon 
the  arms  stretched  before  him  on  the  table  he  says : 
[180] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Well,  she  led  me  a  hard  life,  a  hard  life,  hut  she 
was  the  wife  of  my  bosom,  she  was  meine  frau!" 

I  did  not  see  the  revised,  or  rather  the  newly- 
created  and  written,  Rip  Van  Winkle  until  Mr. 
Jefferson  brought  it  to  America  and  was  playing 
it  at  Niblo's  Garden  in  New  York.  Between  him- 
self and  Dion  Boucicault  a  drama  carrying  all  the 
possibilities,  all  the  lights  and  shadows  of  his  genius 
had  been  constructed.  In  the  first  act  he  sang  a 
drinking  song  to  a  wing  accompaniment  delight- 
fully, adding  much  to  the  tone  and  color  of  the  sit- 
uation. The  exact  reversal  of  the  Lear  suggestion 
in  the  last  act  was  an  inspiration,  his  own  and  not 
Boucicault's.  The  weird  scene  in  the  mountains 
fell  in  admirably  with  a  certain  weird  note  in  the 
Jefferson  genius,  and  supplied  the  needed  element 
of  variety. 

I  always  thought  it  a  good  acting  play  under 
any  circumstances,  but,  in  his  hands,  matchless.  He 
thought  himself  that  the  piece,  as  a  piece,  and  re- 
gardless of  his  own  acting,  deserved  better  of  the 
critics  than  they  were  always  willing  to  give  it.  As- 
suredly, no  drama  that  ever  was  written,  as  he 
played  it,  ever  took  such  a  hold  upon  the  public. 
He  rendered  it  to  three  generations,  and  to  a  rising, 

[181] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

not  a  falling,  popularity,  drawing  to  the  very  last 
undiminished  audiences. 

Because  of  this  unexampled  run  he  was  some- 
times  described  by  unthinking  people  as  a  one-part 
actor.  Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth. 
He  possessed  uncommon  versatility.  That  after 
twenty  years  of  the  new  Hip  Van  Winkle,  when  he 
was  past  fifty  years  of  age,  he  could  come  back  to 
such  parts  as  Caleb  Plummer  and  Acres  is  proof 
of  this.  He  need  not  have  done  so  at  all.  Carry- 
ing a  pension  roll  of  dependents  aggregating  fifteen 
or  twenty  thousand  a  year  for  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  Kip  would  still  have  sufficed  his  re- 
quirements. It  was  his  love  for  his  art  that  took 
him  to  The  Cricket  and  The  Rivals,  and  at  no  in- 
considerable cost  to  himself. 

I  have  heard  ill-natured  persons,  some  of  them 
envious  actors,  say  that  he  did  nothing  for  the  stage. 

He  certainly  did  not  make  many  contributions 
to  its  upholstery.  He  was  in  no  position  to  emu- 
late Sir  Henry  Irving  in  forcing  and  directing  the 
public  taste.  But  he  did  in  America  quite  as  much 
as  Sir  Charles  Wyndham  and  Sir  Henry  Irving  in 
England  to  elevate  the  personality,  the  social  and 
intellectual  standing  of  the  actor  and  the  stage, 
[182] 


"MAKSE  HENRY" 

effecting  in  a  lifetime  a  revolution  in  the  attitude 
of  the  people  and  the  clergy  of  both  countries  to 
the  theater  and  all  things  in  it.  This  was  surely 
enough  for  one  man  in  any  craft  or  country. 

He  was  always  a  good  stage  speaker.  Late  in 
life  he  began  to  speak  elsewhere,  and  finally  to 
lecture.  His  success  pleased  him  immensely.  The 
night  of  the  Sunday  afternoon  charity  for  the 
Newsboys'  Home  in  Louisville,  when  the  promise 
of  a  talk  from  him  had  filled  the  house  to  over- 
flowing, he  was  like  a  boy  who  had  come  off  from  a 
college  occasion  with  all  the  honors.  Indeed,  the 
degrees  of  Harvard  and  Yale,  which  had  reached 
him  both  unexpectedly  and  unsolicited,  gave  him  a 
pleasure  quite  apart  from  the  vanity  they  might 
have  gratified  in  another;  he  regarded  them,  and 
justly,  as  the  recognition  at  once  of  his  profession 
and  of  his  personal  character. 

I  never  knew  a  man  whose  moral  sensibilities 
were  more  acute.  He  loved  the  respectable.  He 
detested  the  unclean.  He  was  just  as  attractive  off 
the  stage  as  upon  it,  because  he  was  as  unaffected 
and  real  in  his  personality  as  he  was  sincere  and 
conscientious  in  his  public  representations,  his 
lovely  nature  showing  through  his  art  in  spite  of 

[183] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

him.    His  purpose  was  to  fill  the  scene  and  forget 
himself. 

v 

The  English  newspapers  accompanied  the  tid- 
ings of  Mr.  Jefferson's  death  with  rather  sparing 
estimates  of  his  eminence  and  his  genius,  though 
his  success  in  London,  where  he  was  well  known, 
had  been  unequivocal.  Indeed,  himself,  alone  with 
Edwin  Booth  and  Mary  Anderson,  may  be  said  to 
complete  the  list  of  those  Americans  who  have  at- 
tained any  real  recognition  in  the  British  metrop- 
olis. The  Times  spoke  of  him  as  "an  able  if  not  a 
great  actor."  If  Joseph  Jefferson  was  not  a  great 
actor  I  should  like  some  competent  person  to  tell 
me  what  actor  of  our  time  could  be  so  described. 

Two  or  three  of  the  journals  of  Paris  referred 
to  him  as  "the  American  Coquelin."  It  had  been 
apter  to  describe  Coquelin  as  the  French  Jefferson. 
I  never  saw  Frederic  Lemaitre.  But,  him  apart, 
I  have  seen  all  the  eccentric  comedians,  the  char- 
acter actors  of  the  last  fifty  years,  and,  in  spell 
power,  in  precision  and  deftness  of  touch,  in  acute, 
penetrating,  all-embracing  and  all-embodying  in- 
telligence and  grasp,  I  should  place  Joseph  Jeffer- 
son easily  at  their  head. 
[184] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Shakespeare  was  his  Bible.  The  stage  had  been 
his  cradle.  He  continued  all  his  days  a  student. 
In  him  met  the  meditative  and  the  observing  facul- 
ties. In  his  love  of  fishing,  his  love  of  painting, 
his  love  of  music  we  see  the  brooding,  contemplative 
spirit  joined  to  the  alert  in  mental  force  and  fore- 
sight when  he  addressed  himself  to  the  activities 
and  the  objectives  of  the  theater.  He  was  a  thor- 
ough stage  manager,  skillful,  patient  and  upright. 
His  company  was  his  family.  He  was  not  gentler 
with  the  children  and  grandchildren  he  ultimately 
drew  about  him  than  he  had  been  with  the  young 
men  and  young  women  who  had  preceded  them  in 
his  employment  and  instruction. 

He  was  nowise  ashamed  of  his  calling.  On  the 
contrary,  he  was  proud  of  it.  His  mother  had 
lived  and  died  an  actress.  He  preferred  that  his 
progeny  should  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  their 
forebears  even  as  he  had  done.  It  is  beside  the 
purpose  to  inquire,  as  was  often  done,  what  might 
have  happened  had  he  undertaken  the  highest 
flights  of  tragedy;  one  might  as  well  discuss  the 
relation  of  a  Dickens  to  a  Shakespeare.  Sir  Henry 
Irving  and  Sir  Charles  Wyndham  in  England,  M. 
Coquelin  in  France,  his  contemporaries — each  had 

[185] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

his  metier.  They  were  perfect  in  their  art  and  un- 
alike in  their  art.  No  comparison  between  them 
can  be  justly  drawn.  I  was  witness  to  the  rise  of 
all  three  of  them,  and  have  followed  them  in  their 
greatest  parts  throughout  their  most  brilliant  and 
eminent  and  successful  careers,  and  can  say  of  each 
as  of  Mr.  Jefferson: 

More  than  King  can  no  man  be — Whether  he 
rule  in  Cyprus  or  in  Dreams. 

There  shall  be  Kings  of  Thule  after  kings  are  gone. 
The  actor  dies  and  leaves  no  copy;  his  deeds  are 
writ  in  water,  only  his  name  survives  upon  tradi- 
tion's tongue,  and  yet,  from  Betterton  and  Garrick 
to  Irving,  from  Macklin  and  Quin  to  Wyndham 
and  Jefferson,  how  few! 


[186] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-FOURTH 

THE  WRITING  OF  MEMOIRS — SOME  CHARACTERISTICS 

OF       CARL       SCHURZ SAM       BOWLES HORACE 

WHITE   AND   THE   MUGWUMPS 


TALLEYRAND  was  so  impressed  by  the 
world-compelling  character  of  the  memoirs 
he  had  prepared  for  posterity  that  he  fixed  an  in- 
terdict of  more  than  fifty  years  upon  the  date  set 
for  their  publication,  and  when  at  last  the  bulky 
tomes  made  their  appearance,  they  excited  no  espe- 
cial interest — certainly  created  no  sensation — and 
lie  for  the  most  part  dusty  upon  the  shelves  of  the 
libraries  that  contain  them.  For  a  different  reason, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  put  a  time  limit  upon  the 
volume,  or  volumes,  which  will  tell  us,  among  other 
things,  all  about  one  of  the  greatest  scandals  of 
modern  times;  and  yet  how  few  people  now  recall 
it  or  care  anything  about  the  dramatis  personae  and 

[187] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  actual  facts!  Metternich,  next  after  Napoleon 
and  Talleyrand,  was  an  important  figure  in  a  stir- 
ring epoch.  He,  too,  indicted  an  autobiography, 
which  is  equally  neglected  among  the  books  that 
are  sometimes  quoted  and  extolled,  but  rarely  read. 
Rousseau,  the  half  insane,  and  Barras,  the  wholly 
vicious,  have  twenty  readers  where  Talleyrand  and 
Metternich  have  one. 

From  this  point  of  view,  the  writing  of  memoirs, 
excepting  those  of  the  trivial  French  School  or  gos- 
siping letters  and  diaries  of  the  Pepys-Walpole 
variety,  would  seem  an  unprofitable  task  for  a  great 
man's  undertaking.  Boswell  certainly  did  for 
Johnson  what  the  thunderous  old  doctor  could  not 
have  done  for  himself.  Nevertheless,  from  the  days 
of  Cassar  to  the  days  of  Sherman  and  Lee,  the  cap- 
tains of  military  and  senatorial  and  literary  indus- 
try have  regaled  themselves,  if  they  have  not  edified 
the  public,  by  the  narration  of  their  own  stories; 
and,  I  dare  say,  to  the  end  of  time,  interest  in  one's 
self,  and  the  mortal  desire  to  linger  yet  a  little 
longer  on  the  scene — now  and  again,  as  in  the  case 
of  General  Grant,  the  assurance  of  honorable  remu- 
neration making  needful  provision  for  others — will 
[188] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

move  those  who  have  cut  some  figure  in  the  world 
to  follow  the  wandering  Celt  in  the  wistful  hope — 

Around  my  fire  an  evening  group  to  draw,, 
And  tell  of  all  I  felt  and  all  I  saw. 

Something  like  this  occurs  to  me  upon  a  reperusal 
of  the  unfinished  memoirs  of  my  old  and  ddar 
friend,  Carl  Schurz.  Assuredly  few  men  had  bet- 
ter warrant  for  writing  about  themselves  or  a  live- 
lier tale  to  tell  than  the  famous  ^German- American, 
who  died  leaving  that  tale  unfinished.  No  man  in 
life  was  more  misunderstood  and  maligned.  There 
was  nothing  either  erratic  or  conceited  about 
Schurz,  nor  was  he  more  pragmatic  than  is  com- 
mon to  the  possessor  of  positive  opinions  along  with 
the  power  to  make  their  expression  effectual. 

The  actual  facts  of  his  public  life  do  not  any- 
where show  that  his  politics  shifted  with  his  own 
interests.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  singularly  re- 
gardless of  his  interests  where  his  convictions  in- 
terposed. Though  an  alien,  and  always  an  alien, 
he  possessed  none  of  the  shifty  traits  of  the  soldier 
of  fortune.  Never  in  his  career  did  he  crook  the 
pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee  before  any  worldly 

[189] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

throne  of  grace  or  flatter  any  mob  that  place  might 
follow  fawning.  His  great  talents  had  only  to  lend 
themselves  to  party  uses  to  get  their  full  requital. 
He  refused  them  equally  to  Grant  in  the  White 
House  and  the  multitude  in  Missouri,  going  his  own 
gait,  which  could  be  called  erratic  only  by  the  con- 
ventional, to  whom  regularity  is  everything  and  in- 
dividuality nothing. 

Schurz  was  first  of  all  and  above  all  an  orator. 
His  achievements  on  the  platform  and  in  the  Sen- 
ate were  undeniable.  He  was  unsurpassed  in  de- 
bate. He  had  no  need  to  exploit  himself.  The 
single  chapter  in  his  life  on  which  light  was  desir- 
able was  the  military  episode.  The  cruel  and  false 
saying,  "I  fight  mit  Sigel  und  runs  mit  Schurz," 
obviously  the  offspring  of  malignity,  did  mislead 
many  people,  reenforced  by  the  knowledge  that 
Schurz  was  not  an  educated  soldier.  How  thor- 
oughly he  disposes  of  this  calumny  his  memoirs 
attest.  Fuller,  more  convincing  vindication  could 
not  be  asked  of  any  man;  albeit  by  those  familiar 
with  the  man  himself  it  could  not  be  doubted  that 
he  had  both  courage  and  aptitude  for  military  em- 
ployment. 

[190] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 


ii 


A  philosopher  and  an  artist,  he  was  drawn  by 
circumstance  into  the  vortex  of  affairs.  Except 
for  the  stirring  events  of  1848,  he  might  have  lived 
and  died  a  professor  at  Bonn  or  Heidelberg.  If 
he  had  pursued  his  musical  studies  at  Leipsic  he 
must  have  become  a  master  of  the  piano  keyboard. 
As  it  was,  he  played  Schumann  and  Chopin  credit- 
ably. The  rescue  of  Kinkel,  the  flight  from  the 
fatherland,  the  mild  Bohemianizing  in  Paris  and 
London  awakened  within  him  the  spirit  of  action 
rather  than  of  adventure. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  Dalgetty  about  him; 
too  reflective  and  too  accomplished.  His  early  mar- 
riage attests  a  domestic  trend,  from  which  he  never 
departed;  though  an  idealist  in  his  public  aspira- 
tions and  aims  he  was  a  sentimentalist  in  his  home 
life  and  affections.  Genial  in  temperament  and 
disposition,  his  personal  habit  was  moderation 
itself. 

He  was  a  German.  Never  did  a  man  live  so  long 
in  a  foreign  country  and  take  on  so  few  of  its 
thoughts  and  ways.  He  threw  himself  into  the 
anti-slavery  movement  upon  the  crest  of  the  wave  *, 

[191] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  flowing  sea  carried  him  quickly  from  one  dis- 
tinction to  another;  the  ebb  tide,  which  found  him 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  revealed  to  his 
startled  senses  the  creeping,  crawling  things  be- 
neath the  surface;  partyism  rampant,  tyrannous 
and  corrupt;  a  self-willed  soldier  in  the  White 
House;  a  Blaine,  a  Butler  and  a  Garfield  leading 
the  Representatives,  a  Cameron  and  a  Conkling 
leading  the  Senate;  single-minded  disinterestedness, 
pure  unadulterated  conviction,  nowhere. 

Jobs  and  jobbing  flourished  on  every  side.  An 
impossible  scheme  of  reconstruction  was  trailing  its 
slow,  putrescent  length  along.  The  revenue  service 
was  thick  with  thieves,  the  committees  of  Congress 
were  packed  with  mercenaries.  Money-making  in 
high  places  had  become  the  order  of  the  day.  Was 
it  for  this  that  oceans  of  patriotism,  of  treasure  and 
of  blood  had  been  poured  out?  Was  it  for  this  that 
he  had  fought  with  tongue  and  pen  and  sword? 

There  was  Sumner — the  great  Sumner — who  had 
quarreled  with  Grant  and  Fish,  to  keep  him  com- 
pany and  urge  him  on.  There  was  the  Tribune, 
the  puissant  Tribune — two  of  them,  one  in  New 
York  and  the  other  in  Chicago — to  give  him  counte- 
nance. There  was  need  of  liberalizing  and  loosen- 
[192] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ing  things  in  Missouri,  for  which  he  sat  in  the  Sen- 
ate— they  could  not  go  on  forever  half  the  best 
elements  in  the  State  disfranchised. 

Thus  the  Liberal  Movement  of  1872. 

Schurz  went  to  Cincinnati  elate  with  hope.  He 
was  an  idealist — not  quite  yet  a  philosopher.  He 
had  his  friends  about  him.  Sam  Bowles — the  first 
newspaper  politician  of  his  day,  with  none  of  the 
handicaps  carried  by  Raymond  and  Forney — a  man 
keen  of  insight  and  foresight,  fertile  of  resources, 
and  not  afraid — stood  foremost  among  them.  Next 
came  Horace  White.  Doric  in  his  simplicity  like  a 
marble  shaft,  and  to  the  outer  eye  as  cold  as  marble, 
but  below  a  man  of  feeling,  conviction  and  tenacity, 
a  working  journalist  and  a  doughty  doctrinaire.  A 
little  group  of  such  men  formed  itself  about  Schurz 
— then  only  forty-three  years  old — to  what  end? 
Why,  Greeley,  Horace  Greeley,  the  bellwether  of 
abolitionism,  the  king  bee  of  protectionism,  the  man 
of  fads  and  isms  and  the  famous  "old  white  hat." 

To  some  of  us  it  was  laughable.  To  Schurz  it 
was  tragical.  A  bridge  had  to  be  constructed  for 
him  to  pass — for  retrace  his  steps  he  could  not — 
and,  as  it  were,  blindfolded,  he  had  to  be  backed 
upon  this  like  a  mule  aboard  a  train  of  cars.     I 

[193] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

sometimes  wonder  what  might  have  happened  if 
Schurz  had  then  and  there  resigned  his  seat  in  the 
Senate,  got  his  brood  together  and  returned  to  Ger- 
many. I  dare  say  he  would  have  been  welcomed 
by  Bismarck. 

Certainly  there  was  no  lodgment  for  him  thence- 
forward in  American  politics.  The  exigencies  of 
1876-77  made  him  a  provisional  place  in  the  Hayes 
Administration ;  but,  precisely  as  the  Democrats  of 
Missouri  could  put  such  a  man  to  no  use,  the  Re- 
publicans at  large  could  find  no  use  for  him.  He 
seemed  a  bull  in  a  china  shop  to  the  political  organ- 
ization he  honored  with  a  preference  wholly  intel- 
lectual, and  having  no  stomach  for  either  extreme, 
he  became  a  Mugwump. 

in 

He  was  a  German.  He  was  an  artist.  By  na- 
ture a  doctrinaire,  he  had  become  a  philosopher. 
He  could  never  wholly  adjust  himself  to  his  en- 
vironment. He  lectured  Lincoln,  and  Lincoln,  per- 
ceiving his  earnest  truthfulness  and  genuine  quali- 
ties, forgave  him  his  impertinence,  nor  ceased  to 
regard  him  with  the  enduring  affection  one  might 
have  for  an  ardent,  aspiring  and  lovable  boy.  He 
[194] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

was  repellant  to  Grant,  who  could  not  and  perhaps 
did  not  desire  to  understand  him.  ...  To  him  the 
Southerners  were  always  the  red-faced,  swash- 
buckling slave-drivers  he  had  fancied  and  pictured 
them  in  the  days  of  his  abolition  oratory.  More 
and  more  he  lived  in  a  rut  of  his  own  fancies,  wise 
in  books  and  counsels,  gentle  in  his  relations  with 
the  few  who  enjoyed  his  confidence;  to  the  last  a 
most  captivating  personality. 

Though  fastidious,  Schurz  was  not  intolerant. 
Yet  he  was  hard  to  convince — tenacious  of  his  opin- 
ions— courteous  but  insistent  in  debate.  He  was  a 
German;  a  German  Herr  Doktor  of  Music,  of 
Letters  and  of  Common  Law.  During  an  intimacy 
of  more  than  thirty  years  we  scarcely  ever  wholly 
agreed  about  any  public  matter;  differing  about 
even  the  civil  service  and  the  tariff.  But  I  admired 
him  hugely  and  loved  him  heartily. 

I  had  once  a  rather  amusing  encounter  with  him. 
There  was  a  dinner  at  Delmonico's,  from  whose 
program  of  post-prandial  oratory  I  had  purposely 
caused  my  own  name  to  be  omitted.  Indeed,  I  had 
had  with  a  lady  a  wager  I  very  much  wished  to  win 
that  I  would  not  speak.  General  Grant  and  I  went 
in  together,  and  during  the  repast  he  said  that  the 

[195] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

only  five  human  beings  in  the  world  whom  he  de- 
tested were  actually  here  at  table. 

Of  course,  Schurz  was  one  of  these.  He  was  the 
last  on  the  list  of  speakers  and,  curiously  enough — 
the  occasion  being  the  consideration  of  certain  ways 
and  means  for  the  development  of  the  South — and 
many  leading  Southerners  present — he  composed 
his  speech  out  of  an  editorial  tour  de  force  he  was 
making  in  the  Evening  Post  on  The  Homicidal 
Side  of  Southern  Life.  Before  he  had  proceeded 
half  through  General  Grant,  who  knew  of  my 
wager,  said,  "You'll  lose  your  bet,"  and,  it  being 
one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  thought  so  too,  and 
did  not  care  whether  I  won  or  lost  it.  When  he 
finished,  the  call  on  me  was  spontaneous  and  uni- 
versal. "Now  give  it  to  him  good,"  said  General 
Grant. 

And  I  did;  I  declared — the  reporters  were  long 
since  gone — that  there  had  not  been  a  man  killed 
amiss  in  Kentucky  since  the  war;  that  where  one 
had  been  killed  two  should  have  been;  and,  amid 
roars  of  laughter  which  gave  me  time  to  frame 
some  fresh  absurdity,  I  delivered  a  prose  peean  to 
murder. 

Nobody  seemed  more  pleased  than  Schurz  him- 
£196] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

self,  and  as  we  came  away — General  Grant  having 
disappeared — he  put  his  arm  about  me  like  a  school- 
boy and  said :  "Well,  well,  I  had  no  idea  you  were 
so  bloody-minded." 


[197] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH 

EVERY   TRADE    HAS   ITS    TRICKS   —   I    PLAY   ONE   ON 

WILLIAM      MC  KINLEY  FAR      AWAY      PARTY 

POLITICS  AND  POLITICAL  ISSUES 


THERE  are  tricks  in  every  trade.  The  tariff 
being  the  paramount  issue  of  the  day,  I  re- 
ceived a  tempting  money  offer  from  Philadelphia  to 
present  my  side  of  the  question,  but  when  the  time 
fixed  was  about  to  arrive  I  found  myself  billed  for 
a  debate  with  no  less  an  adversary  than  William 
McKinley,  protectionist  leader  in  the  Lower  House 
of  Congress.  We  were  the  best  of  friends  and  I 
much  objected  to  a  joint  meeting.  The  parties, 
however,  would  take  no  denial,  and  it  was  arranged 
that  we  should  be  given  alternate  dates.  Then  it 
appeared  that  the  designated  thesis  read:  "Which 
political  party  offers  for  the  workingman  the  best 
solution  of  the  tariff  problem?" 
[198] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Here  was  a  poser.  It  required  special  prepara- 
tion, for  which  I  had  not  the  leisure.  I  wanted  the 
stipend,  but  was  not  willing — scarcely  able — to  pay 
so  much  for  it.  I  was  about  to  throw  the  engage- 
ment over  when  a  lucky  thought  struck  me.  I  had 
a  cast-off  lecture  entitled  Money  and  Morals.  It 
had  been  rather  popular.  Why  might  I  not  put 
a  head  and  tail  to  this — a  foreword  and  a  few 
words  in  conclusion — and  make  it  meet  the  purpose 
and  serve  the  occasion? 

When  the  evening  arrived  there  was  a  great  audi- 
ence. Half  of  the  people  had  come  to  applaud,  the 
other  half  to  antagonize.  I  was  received,  however, 
with  what  seemed  a  united  acclaim.  When  the 
cheering  had  ceased,  with  the  blandest  air  I  began: 

"In  that  chapter  of  the  history  of  Ireland  which 
was  reserved  for  the  consideration  of  snakes,  the 
historian,  true  to  the  solecism  as  well  as  the  brevity 
of  Irish  wit,  informs  us  that  'there  are  no  snakes  in 
Ireland.' 

"I  am  afraid  that  on  the  present  occasion  I  shall 
have  to  emulate  this  flight  of  the  Celtic  imagination. 
I  find  myself  billed  to  speak  from  a  Democratic 
standpoint  as  to  which  party  offers  the  best  practi- 
cal means  for  the  benefit  of  the  workingmen  of  the 

[199] 


"MA&SE  HENRY" 

country.  If  I  am  to  discharge  with  fidelity  the  duty 
thus  assigned  me,  I  must  begin  by  repudiating  the 
text  in  toto,  because  the  Democratic  Party  recog- 
nizes no  political  agency  for  one  class  which  is  not 
equally  open  to  all  classes.  The  bulwark  and 
belltower  of  its  faith,  the  source  and  resource  of  its 
strength  are  laid  in  the  declaration,  'Freedom  for 
all,  special  privileges  to  none,'  which  applied  to 
practical  affairs  would  deny  to  self-styled  working- 
men,  organized  into  a  cooperative  society,  any 
political  means  not  enjoyed  by  every  other  organ- 
ized cooperative  society,  and  by  each  and  every 
citizen,  individually,  to  himself  and  his  heirs  and  as- 
signs, forever. 

"But  in  a  country  like  ours,  what  right  has  any 
body  of  men  to  get  together  and,  labelling  them- 
selves workingmen,  to  talk  about  political  means 
and  practical  ends  exclusive  to  themselves?  Who 
among  us  has  the  single  right  to  claim  for  himself, 
and  the  likes  of  him,  the  divine  title  of  a  working- 
man?  We  are  all  workingmen,  the  earnest  plod- 
ding scholar  in  his  library,  surrounded  by  the 
luxury  and  comfort  which  his  learning  and  his 
labor  have  earned  for  him,  no  less  than  the  poor 
collier  in  the  mine,  with  darkness  and  squalor  clos- 
[200] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ing  him  round  about,  and  want  maybe  staring  him 
in  the  face,  yet — if  he  be  a  true  man — with  a  little 
bird  singing  ever  in  his  heart  the  song  of  hope  and 
cheer  which  cradled  the  genius  of  Stephenson  and 
Arkwright  and  the  long  procession  of  inventors, 
lowly  born,  to  whom  the  world  owes  the  glorious 
achievements  of  this,  the  greatest  of  i;he  centuries. 
We  are  all  workingmen — the  banker,  the  minister, 
the  lawyer,  the  doctor — toiling  from  day  to  day, 
and  it  may  be  we  are  well  paid  for  our  toil,  to  repre- 
sent and  to  minister  to  the  wants  of  the  time  no  less 
than  the  farmer  and  the  farmer's  boy,  rising  with 
the  lark  to  drive  the  team  afield,  and  to  dally  with 
land  so  rich  it  needs  to  be  but  tickled  with  a  hoe  to 
laugh  a  harvest. 

"Having  somewhat  of  an  audacious  fancy,  I  have 
sometimes  in  moments  of  exuberance  ventured  upon 
the  conceit  that  our  Jupiter  Tonans,  the  American 
editor,  seated  upon  his  three-legged  throne  and 
enveloped  by  the  majesty  and  the  mystery  of  his 
pretentious  'we,'  is  a  workingman  no  less  than  the 
poor  reporter,  who  year  in  and  year  out  braves  the 
perils  of  the  midnight  rounds  through  the  slums  of 
the  city,  yea  in  the  more  perilous  temptations  of 
the  town,  yet  carries  with  him  into  the  darkest  dens 

[201] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  love  of  work,  the  hope  of  reward  and  the  fear 
only  of  dishonor. 

"Why,  the  poor  officeseeker  at  Washington 
begging  a  bit  of  that  pie,  which,  having  got  his  own 
slice,  a  cruel,  hard-hearted  President  would  elimi- 
nate from  the  bill  of  fare,  he  likewise  is  a  working- 
man,  and  I  can  tell  you  a  very  hard-working  man 
with  a  tough  job  of  work,  and  were  better  breaking 
rock  upon  a  turnpike  in  Dixie  or  splitting  rails  on 
a  quarter  section  out  in  the  wild  and  woolly  West. 

"It  is  true  that,  as  stated  on  the  program,  I  am  a 
Democrat — as  Artemus  Ward  once  said  of  the 
horses  in  his  panorama,  I  can  conceal  it  no  longer 
— at  least  I  am  as  good  a  Democrat  as  they  have 
nowadays.  But  first  of  all,  I  am  an  American,  and 
in  America  every  man  who  is  not  a  policeman  or  a 
dude  is  a  workingman.  So,  by  your  leave,  my 
friends,  instead  of  sticking  very  closely  to  the  text, 
and  treating  it  from  a  purely  party  point  of  view, 
I  propose  to  take  a  ramble  through  the  highways 
and  byways  of  life  and  thought  in  our  beloved  coun- 
try and  to  cast  a  balance  if  I  can  from  an  American 
point  of  view. 

"I  want  to  say  in  the  beginning  that  no  party  can 
save  any  man  or  any  set  of  men  from  the  daily  toil 
[202] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

by  which  all  of  us  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being." 

Then  I  worked  in  my  old  lecture. 

It  went  like  hot  cakes.  When  next  I  met  Wil- 
liam McKinley  he  said  jocosely:  "You  are  a  mean 
man,  Henry  Watterson !" 

"How  so?"  I  asked. 

"I  accepted  the  invitation  to  answer  you  because 
I  wanted  and  needed  the  money.  Of  course  I  had 
no  time  to  prepare  a  special  address.  My  idea  was 
to  make  my  fee  by  ripping  you  up  the  back.  But 
when  I  read  the  verbatim  report  which  had  been 
prepared  for  me  there  was  not  a  word  with  which  I 
could  take  issue,  and  that  completely  threw  me  out." 

Then  I  told  him  how  it  had  happened  and  we  had 
a  hearty  laugh.  He  was  the  most  lovable  of  men. 
That  such  a  man  should  have  fallen  a  victim  to  the 
blow  of  an  assassin  defies  explanation,  as  did  the 
murders  of  Lincoln  and  Garfield,  like  McKinley, 
amiable,  kindly  men  giving  never  cause  of  personal 
offense. 

II 

The  murderer  is  past  finding  out.  In  one  way 
and  another  I  fancy  that  I  am  well  acquainted  with 
the  assassins  of  history.    Of  those  who  slew  Caesar 

[203]; 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  learned  in  my  schooldays,  and  between  Ravaillac, 
who  did  the  business  for  Henry  of  Navarre,  and 
Booth  and  Guiteau,  my  familiar  knowledge  seems 
almost  at  first  hand.  One  night  at  Chamberlin's, 
in  Washington,  George  Corkhill,  the  district  at- 
torney who  was  prosecuting  the  murderer  of  Gar- 
field, said  to  me:  "You  will  never  fully  understand 
this  case  until  you  have  sat  by  me  through  one  day's 
proceedings  in  court."    Next  day  I  did  this. 

Never  have  I  passed  five  hours  in  a  theater  so 
filled  with  thrills.  I  occupied  a  seat  betwixt  Cork- 
hill  and  Scoville,  Guiteau's  brother-in-law  and  vol- 
untary attorney.  I  say  "voluntary"  because  from 
the  first  Guiteau  rejected  him  and  vilely  abused 
him,  vociferously  insisting  upon  being  his  own  law- 
yer. 

From  the  moment  Guiteau  entered  the  trial  room 
it  was  a  theatrical  extravaganza.  He  was  in  irons, 
sandwiched  between  two  deputy  sheriffs,  came  in 
shouting  like  a  madman,  and  began  at  once  railing 
at  the  judge,  the  jury  and  the  audience.  A  very 
necessary  rule  had  been  established  that  when  he 
interposed,  whatever  was  being  said  or  done  auto- 
matically stopped.  Then,  when  he  ceased,  the  case 
went  on  again  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
[204] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Only  Scoville  intervened  between  me  and 
Guiteau  and  I  had  an  excellent  opportunity  to  see, 
hear  and  size  him  up.  In  visage  and  voice  he  was 
the  meanest  creature  I  have,  either  in  life  or  in 
dreams,  encountered.  He  had  the  face  and  intona- 
tions of  a  demon.  Everything  about  him  was  loath- 
some. I  cannot  doubt  that  his  criminal  colleagues 
of  history  were  of  the  same  description. 

Charlotte  Corday  was  surely  a  lunatic.  Wilkes 
Booth  I  knew.  He  was  drunk,  had  been  drunk  all 
that  winter,  completely  muddled  and  perverted  by 
brandy,  the  inheritant  of  mad  blood.  Czolgosz,  the 
slayer  of  McKinley,  and  the  assassin  of  the  Empress 
Elizabeth  were  clearly  insane. 


in 


McKinley  and  Protectionism,  Cleveland,  Carlisle 
and  Free  Trade — how  far  away  they  seem! 

With  the  passing  of  the  old  issues  that  divided 
parties  new  issues  have  come  upon  the  scene.  The 
alignment  of  the  future  will  turn  upon  these.  But 
underlying  all  issues  of  all  time  are  fundamental 
ideas  which  live  forever  and  aye,  and  may  not  be 
forgotten  or  ignored. 

[205] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

It  used  to  be  claimed  by  the  followers  of  Jeffer- 
son that  Democracy  was  a  fixed  quantity,  rising  out 
of  the  bedrock  of  the  Constitution,  while  Federal- 
ism, Whiggism  and  Republicanism  were  but  the 
chimeras  of  some  prevailing  fancy  drawing  their 
sustenance  rather  from  temporizing  expediency  and 
current  sentiment  than  from  basic  principles  and 
profound  conviction.  To  make  haste  slowly,  to  look 
before  leaping,  to  take  counsel  of  experience — were 
Democratic  axioms.  Thus  the  fathers  of  Democ- 
racy, while  fully  conceiving  the  imperfections  of 
government  and  meeting  as  events  required  the 
need  alike  of  movement  and  reform,  put  the  vision- 
ary and  experimental  behind  them  to  aim  at  things 
visible,  attainable,  tangible,  the  written  Constitution 
the  one  safe  precedent,  the  morning  star  and  the 
evening  star  of  their  faith  and  hope. 

What  havoc  the  parties  and  the  politicians  have 
made  of  all  these  lofty  pretenses!  Where  must  an 
old-line  Democrat  go  to  find  himself?  Two  issues, 
however,  have  come  upon  the  scene  which  for  the 
time  being  are  paramount  and  which  seem  organic. 
They  are  set  for  the  determination  of  the  twentieth 
century:  The  sex  question  and  the  drink  question. 

I  wonder  if  it  be  possible  to  consider  them  in  a 
[206] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

catholic  spirit  from  a  philosophic  standpoint.  I  can 
truly  say  that  the  enactment  of  prohibition  laws, 
state  or  national,  is  personally  nothing  to  me.  I 
long  ago  reached  an  age  when  the  convivialism  of 
life  ceased  to  cut  any  figure  in  the  equation  of  my 
desires  and  habits.  It  is  the  never-failing  recourse 
of  the  intolerant,  however,  to  ascribe  an  individual, 
and,  of  course,  an  unworthy,  motive  to  contrariwise 
opinions,  and  I  have  not  escaped  that  kind  of 
criticism. 

The  challenge  underlying  prohibition  is  twofold : 
Does  prohibition  prohibit,  and,  if  it  does,  may  it  not 
generate  evils  peculiarly  its  own? 

The  question  hinges  on  what  are  called  "sumptu- 
ary laws" ;  that  is,  statutes  regulating  the  food  and 
drink,  the  habits  and  apparel  of  the  individual  citi- 
zen. This  in  turn  harks  back  to  the  issue  of  paternal 
government.  That,  once  admitted  and  established, 
becomes  in  time  all-embracing. 

Bigotry  is  a  disease.  The  bigot  pursuing  his 
narrow  round  is  like  the  bedridden  possessed  by  his 
disordered  fancy.  Bigotry  sees  nothing  but  itself, 
which  it  mistakes  for  wisdom  and  virtue.  But  Big- 
otry begets  hypocrisy.  When  this  spreads  over  a 
sufficient  area  and  counts  a  voting  majority  it  sends 

[207] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

its  agents  abroad,  and  thus  we  acquire  canting 
apostles  and  legislators  at  once  corrupt  and  des- 
potic. 

They  are  now  largely  in  evidence  in  the  national 
capital  and  in  the  various  state  capitals,  where  the 
poor-dog,  professional  politicians  most  do  congre- 
gate and  disport  themselves. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  there  seems  nowhere  any 
popular  realization — certainly  any  popular  outcry. 
Do  the  people  grow  degenerate?  Are  they  will- 
fully dense? 


[208] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-SIXTH 

A    LIBEL    ON    MR.     CLEVELAND HIS    FONDNESS    FOR 

CARDS SOME     POKER     STORIES THE     "  SENATE 

GAME" TOM  OCHILTREE,  SENATOR  ALLISON  AND 

GENERAL  SCHENCK 


OT  long  after  Mr.  Cleveland's  marriage,  be- 
ing in  Washington,  I  made  a  box  party  em- 
bracing Mrs.  Cleveland,  and  the  Speaker  and  Mrs. 
Carlisle,  at  one  of  the  theaters  where  Madame 
Modjeska  was  appearing.  The  ladies  expressing  a 
desire  to  meet  the  famous  Polish  actress  who  had 
so  charmed  them,  I  took  them  after  the  play  behind 
the  scenes.  Thereafter  we  returned  to  the  White 
House  where  supper  was  awaiting  us,  the  Presi- 
dent amused  and  pleased  when  told  of  the  agree- 
able incident. 

The  next  day  there  began  to  buzz  reports  to  the 
contrary.     At  first  covert,  they  gained  in  volume 

[209] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  currency  until  a  distinguished  Republican 
party  leader  put  his  imprint  upon  them  in  an 
after-dinner  speech,  going  the  length  of  saying  the 
newly-wedded  Chief  Magistrate  had  actually  struck 
his  wife  and  forbidden  me  the  Executive  Mansion, 
though  I  had  been  there  every  day  during  the  week 
that  followed. 

Mr.  Cleveland  believed  the  matter  too  preposter- 
ous to  be  given  any  credence  and  took  it  rather 
stoically.  But  naturally  Mrs.  Cleveland  was 
shocked  and  outraged,  and  I  made  haste  to  stigma- 
tize it  as  a  lie  out  of  whole  cloth.  Yet  though  this 
was  sent  away  by  the  Associated  Press  and  pub- 
lished broadcast  I  have  occasionally  seen  it  referred 
to  by  persons  over  eager  to  assail  a  man  incapable 
of  an  act  of  rudeness  to  a  woman. 

ii 

Mr.  Cleveland  was  fond — not  overfond — of 
cards.  He  liked  to  play  the  noble  game  at,  say,  a 
dollar  limit — even  once  in  a  while  for  a  little  more 
— but  not  much  more.  And  as  Dr.  Norvin  Green 
was  wont  to  observe  of  Commodore  Vanderbilt,  "he 
held  them  exceeding  close  to  his  boo-som." 

Mr.  Whitney,  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  his  first 
[210] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

administration,  equally  rich  and  hospitable,  had 
often  "the  road  gang,"  as  a  certain  group,  mainly 
senators,  was  called,  to  dine,  with  the  inevitable 
after-dinner  soiree  or  seance.  I  was,  when  in 
Washington,  invited  to  these  parties.  At  one  of 
them  I  chanced  to  sit  between  the  President  and 
Senator  Don  Cameron.  Mr.  Carlisle,  at  the  time 
Speaker  of  the  House — who  handled  his  cards  like 
a  child  and,  as  we  all  knew,  couldn't  play  a  little — 
was  seated  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  table. 

After  a  while  Mr.  Cameron  and  I  began  "bluff- 
ing" the  game — I  recall  that  the  limit  was  five  dol- 
lars— that  is,  raising  and  back-raising  each  other, 
and  whoever  else  happened  to  be  in,  without  much 
or  any  regard  to  the  cards  we  held. 

It  chanced  on  a  deal  that  I  picked  up  a  pat  flush, 
Mr.  Cleveland  a  pat  full.  The  Pennsylvania  sena- 
tor and  I  went  to  the  extreme,  the  President  of 
course  willing  enough  for  us  to  play  his  hand  for 
him.  But  the  Speaker  of  the  House  persistently 
stayed  with  us  and  could  not  be  driven  out. 

When  it  came  to  a  draw  Senator  Cameron  drew 
one  card.  Mr.  Cleveland  and  I  stood  pat.  But 
Mr.  Carlisle  drew  four  cards.  At  length,  after 
much  banter  and  betting,  it  reached  a  show-down 

[211] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and,  mirabile  dictu,  the  Speaker  held  four  kings! 

"Take  the  money,  Carlisle ;  take  the  money,"  ex- 
claimed the  President.  "If  ever  I  am  President 
again  you  shall  be  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  But 
don't  you  make  that  four-card  draw  too  often." 

He  was  President  again,  and  Mr.  Carlisle  was 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

in 

There  had  arisen  a  disagreeable  misunderstand- 
ing between  General  Schenck  and  myself  during 
the  period  when  the  general  was  Minister  at  the 
Court  of  St.  James.  In  consequence  of  this  we  did 
not  personally  meet.  One  evening  at  Chamberlin's 
years  after,  a  party  of  us — mainly  the  Ohio  states- 
man's old  colleagues  in  Congress — were  playing 
poker.  He  came  in  and  joined  us.  Neither  of  us 
knew  the  other  even  by  sight  and  there  was  no 
presentation  when  he  sat  in. 

At  length  a  direct  play  between  the  newcomer 
and  me  arose.  There  was  a  moment's  pause. 
Obviously  we  were  strangers.  Then  it  was  that 
Senator  Allison,  of  Iowa,  who  had  in  his  goodness 
of  heart  purposely  brought  about  this  very  situa- 
tion, introduced  us.  The  general  reddened.  I  was 
[212] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

taken  aback.  But  there  was  no  escape,  and  carry- 
ing it  off  amiably  we  shook  hands.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  then  and  there  we  dropped  our  groundless 
feud  and  remained  the  rest  of  his  life  very  good 
friends. 

In  this  connection  still  another  poker  story.  Sam 
Bugg,  the  Nashville  gambler,  was  on  a  Mississippi 
steamer  bound  for  New  Orleans.  He  came  upon  a 
party  of  Tennesseeans  whom  a  famous  card  sharp 
had  inveigled  and  was  flagrantly  robbing.  Sam 
went  away,  obtained  a  pack  of  cards,  and  stacked 
them  to  give  the  gambler  four  kings  and  the  bright- 
est one  of  the  Nashville  boys  four  aces.  After  two 
or  three  failures  to  bring  the  cold  deck  into  action 
Sam  Bugg  brushed  a  spider — an  imaginary  spider, 
of  course — from  the  gambler's  coat  collar,  for  an 
instant  distracting  his  attention — and  in  the  mo- 
mentary confusion  the  stacked  cards  were  duly  dealt 
and  the  betting  began,  the  gambler  confident  and 
aggressive.  Finally,  all  the  money  up,  the  four 
aces  beat  the  four  kings,  and  for  a  greater  amount 
than  the  Nashvillians  had  lost  and  the  gambler  had 
won.  Whereupon,  without  change  of  muscle,  the 
gambler  drawled:  "Mr.  Bugg,  the  next  time  you 
see  a  spider  biting  me  let  him  bite  on !" 

[213] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  was  told  that  the  Senate  Game  had  been  played 
during  the  War  of  Sections  and  directly  after  for 
large  sums.  With  the  arrival  of  the  rebel  brigadiers 
it>  was  perforce  reduced  to  a  reasonable  limit. 

The  "road  gang"  was  not  unknown  at  the  White 
House.  Sometimes  it  assembled  at  private  houses, 
but  its  accustomed  place  of  meeting  was  first 
Welcker's  and  then  Chamberlin's.  I  do  not  know 
whether  it  continues  to  have  abiding  place  or  even 
an  existence.  In  spite  of  the  reputation  given  me 
by  the  pert  paragraphers  I  have  not  been  on  a  race 
course  or  seen  a  horse  race  or  played  for  other  than 
immaterial  stakes  for  more  than  thirty  years. 

IV 

As  an  all-round  newspaper  writer  and  reporter 
many  sorts  of  people,  high  and  low,  little  and  big, 
queer  and  commonplace,  fell  in  my  way ;  statesmen 
and  politicians,  artists  and  athletes,  circus  riders 
and  prize  fighters;  the  riffraff  and  the  elite;  the 
professional  and  dilettante  of  the  world  polite  and 
the  underworld. 

I  knew  Mike  Walsh  and  Tim  Campbell.  I  knew 
John  Morrissey.  I  have  seen  Heenan — one  of 
the  handsomest  men  of  his  time — and  likewise  Adah 
[214] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Isaacs  Menken,  his  inamorata — many  said  his  wife 
— who  went  into  mourning  for  him  and  thereafter 
hied  away  to  Paris,  where  she  lived  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Alexandre  Dumas,  the  elder,  who  buried 
her  in  Pere  Lachaise  under  a  handsome  monument 
bearing  two  words,  "Thou  knowest,"  beneath  a 
carved  hand  pointed  to  heaven. 

I  did  draw  the  line,  however,  at  Cora  Pearl  and 
Marcus  Cicero  Stanley. 

The  Parisian  courtesan  was  at  the  zenith  of  her 
extraordinary  celebrity  when  I  became  a  rustic 
boulevardier.  She  could  be  seen  everywhere  and 
on  all  occasions.  Her  gowns  were  the  showiest,  her 
equipage  the  smartest;  her  entourage,  loud  though 
it  was  and  vulgar,  yet  in  its  way  was  undeniable. 
She  reigned  for  a  long  time  the  recognized  queen 
of  the  demi-monde.  I  have  beheld  her  in  her  glory 
on  her  throne — her  two  thrones,  for  she  had  two — 
one  on  the  south  side  of  the  river,  the  other  at  the 
east  end — not  to  mention  the  race  course — sur- 
rounded by  a  retinue  of  the  disreputable.  She  did 
not  awaken  in  me  the  least  curiosity,  and  I  declined 
many  opportunities  to  meet  her. 

Marcus  Cicero  Stanley  was  sprung  from  an 
aristocratic,  even  a  distinguished,  North  Carolina 

[215] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

family.  He  came  to  New  Yerk  and  set  up  for  a 
swell.  How  he  lived  I  never  cared  to  find  out, 
though  he  was  believed  to  be  what  the  police  call 
a  "fence."  He  seemed  a  cross  between  a  "con" 
and  a  "beat."  Yet  for  a  while  he  flourished  at  Del- 
monico's,  which  he  made  his  headquarters,  and  cut  a 
kind  of  dash  with  the  unknowing.  He  was  a  hand- 
some, mannerly  brute  who  knew  how  to  dress  and 
carry  himself  like  a  gentleman. 

Later  there  came  to  New  York  another  South- 
erner— a  Far  Southerner  of  a  very  different  quality 
— who  attracted  no  little  attention.  This  was  Tom 
Ochiltree.  He,  too,  was  well  born,  his  father  an 
eminent  jurist  of  Texas;  he,  himself,  a  wit,  bon 
homme  and  raconteur.  Travers  once  said:  "We 
have  three  professional  liars  in  America — Tom 
Ochiltree  is  one  and  George  Alfred  Townsend  is 
the  other  two." 

The  stories  told  of  Tom  would  fill  a  book.  He 
denied  none,  however  preposterous — was  indeed 
the  author  of  many  of  the  most  amusing — of  how, 
when  the  old  judge  proposed  to  take  him  into  law 
partnership  he  caused  to  be  painted  an  office  sign: 
Thomas  P.  Ochiltree  and  Father;  of  his  reply  to 
General  Grant,  who  had  made  him  United  States 
[216] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Marshal  of  Texas,  and  later  suggested  that  it 
would  be  well  for  Tom  to  pay  less  attention  to  the 
race  course:  "Why,  Mr.  President,  all  that  turf 
publicity  relates  to  a  horse  named  after  me,  not 
to  me,"  it  being  that  the  horse  of  the  day  had  been 
so  called;  and  of  General  Grant's  reply:  "Neverthe- 
less, it  would  be  well,  Tom,  for  you  to  look  in  upon 
Texas  once  in  a  while" — in  short,  of  his  many  say- 
ings and  exploits  while  a  member  of  Congress  from 
the  Galveston  district ;  among  the  rest,  that  having 
brought  in  a  resolution  tendering  sympathy  to  the 
German  Empire  on  the  death  of  Herr  Laska,  the 
most  advanced  and  distinguished  of  Radical  Social- 
ists, which  became  for  the  moment  a  cause  celebre. 
Tom  remarked,  "Not  that  I  care  a  damn  about  it, 
except  for  the  prominence  it  gives  to  Bismarck." 

He  lived  when  in  Washington  at  Chamberlin's. 
He  and  John  Chamberlin  were  close  friends.  Once 
when  he  was  breakfasting  with  John  a  mutual 
friend  came  in.  He  was  in  doubt  what  to  order. 
Tom  suggested  beefsteak  and  onions. 

"But,"  objected  the  newcomer,  "I  am  about  to 
call  on  some  ladies,  and  the  smell  of  onions  on  my 
breath,  you  know!" 

"Don't  let  that  trouble  you,"  said  Tom;  "you 

[217] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

have  the  steak  and  onions  and  when  you  get  your 
bill  that  will  take  your  breath  away !" 

Under  an  unpromising  exterior — a  stocky  build 
and  fiery  red  head — there  glowed  a  brave,  generous 
and  tender  spirit.  The  man  was  a  yreux  chevalier. 
He  was  a  knight-errant.  All  women — especially 
all  good  and  discerning  women  who  knew  him  and 
who  could  intuitively  read  beneath  that  clumsy  per- 
sonality his  fine  sense  of  respect — even  of  adoration 
— loved  Tom  Ochiltree. 

The  equivocal  celebrity  he  enjoyed  was  largely 
fostered  by  himself,  his  stories  mostly  at  his  own 
expense.  His  education  had  been  but  casual.  But 
he  had  a  great  deal  of  it  and  a  varied  assortment. 
He  knew  everybody  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
his  friends  ranging  from  the  Prince  of  Wales,  after- 
ward Edward  VII,  Gladstone  and  Disraeli,  Gam- 
betta  and  Thiers,  to  the  bucks  of  the  jockey  clubs. 
There  were  two  of  Tom — Tom  the  noisy  on  ex- 
hibition, and  Tom  the  courtier  in  society. 

How  he  lived  when  out  of  office  was  the  subject 
of  unflattering  conjecture.  Many  thought  him  the 
stipendiary  of  Mr.  Mackay,  the  multimillionaire, 
with  whom  he  was  intimate,  who  told  me  he  could 
never  induce  Tom  to  take  money  except  for  service 
[218] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

rendered.  Among  his  familiars  was  Colonel  North, 
the  English  money  magnate,  who  said  the  same 
thing.  He  had  a  widowed  sister  in  Texas  to  whom 
he  regularly  sent  an  income  sufficient  for  herself 
and  family.  And  when  he  died,  to  the  surprise  of 
every  one,  he  left  his  sister  quite  an  accumulation. 
He  had  never  been  wholly  a  spendthrift.  Though 
he  lived  well  at  Chamberlin's  in  Washington  and 
the  Waldorf  in  New  York  he  was  careful  of  his 
credit  and  his  money.  I  dare  say  he  was  not  unfor- 
tunate in  the  stock  market.  He  never  married  and 
when  he  died,  still  a  youngish  man  as  modern  ages 
go,  all  sorts  of  stories  were  told  of  him,  and  the 
space  writers,  having  a  congenial  subject,  disported 
themselves  voluminously.  Inevitably  most  of  their 
stories  were  apocryphal. 

I  wonder  shall  we  ever  get  any  real  truth  out  of 
what  is  called  history?  There  are  so  many  sides  to 
it  and  such  a  confusing  din  of  voices.  How  much 
does  old  Sam  Johnson  owe  of  the  fine  figure  he  cuts 
to  Boswell,  and,  minus  Boswell,  how  much  would 
be  left  of  him?  For  nearly  a  century  the  Empress 
Josephine  was  pictured  as  the  effigy  of  the  faithful 
and  suffering  wife  sacrificed  upon  the  altar  of  un- 
principled and  selfish  ambition — lovelorn,  deserted, 

[219] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

heartbroken.  It  was  Napoleon,  not  Josephine,  ex- 
cept in  her  pride,  who  suffered.  Who  shall  tell  us 
the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth,  about  Hamilton;  about  Rurr;  about  Cgesar, 
Caligula  and  Cleopatra?  Did  Washington,  when 
he  was  angry,  swear  like  a  trooper?  What  was  the 
matter  with  Nero? 

IV 

One  evening  Edward  King  and  I  were  dining  in 
the  Champs  Elysees  when  he  said:  "There  is  a 
new  coon — a  literary  coon — come  to  town.  He  is 
a  Scotchman  and  his  name  is  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son." Then  he  told  me  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde.  At  that  moment  the  subject  of  our  talk 
was  living  in  a  kind  of  self-imposed  penury  not  half 
a  mile  away.  Had  we  known  this  we  could  have 
ended  the  poor  fellow's  struggle  with  his  pride  and 
ambition  then  and  there;  have  put  him  in  the  way 
of  sure  work  and  plenty  of  it;  perhaps  have  length- 
ened, certainly  have  sweetened,  his  days,  unless  it 
be  true  that  he  was  one  of  the  impossibles,  as  he 
may  easily  be  conceived  to  have  been  from  reading 
his  wayward  biography  and  voluminous  corre- 
spondence. 
[220] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

To  a  young  Kentuckian,  one  of  "my  boys,"  was 
given  the  opportunity  to  see  the  last  of  him  and  to 
bury  him  in  far-away  Samoa,  whither  he  had  taken 
himself  for  the  final  adventure  and  where  he  died, 
having  attained  some  measure  of  the  dreams  he  had 
cherished,  and,  let  us  hope,  happy  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  achievement. 

I  rather  think  Stevenson  should  be  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  latter-day  fictionists.  But  fashions  in 
literature  as  in  dress  are  ever  changing.  Washing- 
ton Irving  was  the  first  of  our  men  of  letters  to  ob- 
tain foreign  recognition.  While  the  fires  of  hate 
between  Great  Britain  and  America  were  still  burn- 
ing he  wrote  kindly  and  elegantly  of  England  and 
the  English,  and  was  accepted  on  both  sides  of  the 
ocean.  Taking  his  style  from  Addison  and  Gold- 
smith, he  emulated  their  charity  and  humor;  he 
went  to  Spain  and  in  the  same  deft  way  he  pictured 
the  then  unknown  byways  of  the  land  of  dreams; 
and  coming  home  again  he  peopled  the  region  of  the 
Hudson  with  the  beings  of  legend  and  fancy  which 
are  dear  to  us. 

He  became  our  national  man  of  letters.  He  stood 
quite  at  the  head  of  our  literature,  giving  the  lie 
to  the  scornful  query,  "Who  reads  an  American 

[221] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

book?"  As  a  pioneer  he  will  always  be  considered; 
as  a  simple  and  vivid  writer  of  things  familiar  and 
entertaining  he  will  probably  always  be  read;  but 
as  an  originator  literary  history  will  hardly  place 
him  very  high.  There  Bret  Harte  surely  led  him. 
The  Tales  of  the  Argonauts  as  works  of  creative 
fancy  exceed  the  Sketches  of  Washington  Irving 
alike  in  wealth  of  color  and  humor,  in  pathos  and 
dramatic  action. 

Some  writers  make  an  exception  of  the  famous 
Sleepy  Hollow  story.  But  they  have  in  mind  the 
Rip  Van  Winkle  of  Jefferson  and  Boucicault,  not 
the  rather  attenuated  story  of  Irving,  which — as  far 
as  the  twenty  years  of  sleep  went — was  borrowed 
from  an  old  German  legend. 

Mark  Twain  and  Bret  Harte,  however,  will  al- 
ways be  bracketed  with  Washington  Irving.  Of 
the  three  I  incline  to  the  opinion  that  Mark  Twain 
did  the  broadest  and  strongest  work.  His  imagi- 
nation had  wider  reach  than  Irving's.  There  is  no- 
where, as  there  is  in  Harte,  the  suspicion  either  of 
insincerity  or  of  artificiality.  Irving's  humor  was 
the  humor  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  and  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield.  It  is  old  English.  Mark  Twain's  is 
his  own — American  through  and  through  to  the 
[222] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

bone.  I  am  not  unmindful  of  Cooper  and  Haw- 
thorne, of  Longfellow,  of  Lowell  and  of  Poe,  but 
speak  of  Irving  as  the  pioneer  American  man  of 
letters,  and  of  Mark  Twain  and  Bret  Harte  as 
American  literature's  most  conspicuous  and  origi- 
nal modern  examples. 


[223] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-SEVENTH 

THE  PROFESSION  OF  JOURNALISM — NEWSPAPERS  AND 
EDITORS  IN  AMERICA — BENNETT,  GREELEY  AND 
RAYMOND FORNEY  AND  DANA THE  EDUCA- 
TION OF  A  JOURNALIST. 


THE  American  newspaper  has  had,  even  in 
my  time,  three  separate  and  distinct  epochs; 
the  thick-and-thin,  more  or  less  servile  party  or- 
gan; the  personal,  one-man-controlled,  rather 
blatant  and  would-be  independent;  and  the  timor- 
ous, corporation,  or  family-owned  billboard  of 
such  news  as  the  ever-increasing  censorship  of  a 
constantly  centralizing  Federal  Government  will 
allow. 

This   latter   appears   to   be   its   present   state. 

Neither  its  individuality  nor  its  self-exploitation, 

scarcely  its  grandiose  pretension,  remains.    There 

continues  to  be  printed  in  large  type  an  amount  of 

[224] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

shallow  stuff  that  would  not  be  missed  if  it  were 
omitted  altogether.  But,  except  as  a  bulletin  of 
yesterday's  doings,  limited,  the  daily  newspaper 
counts  for  little,  the  single  advantage  of  the  editor 
— in  case  there  is  an  editor — that  is,  one  clothed 
with  supervising  authority  who  "edits" — being  that 
he  reaches  the  public  with  his  lucubrations  first, 
the  sanctity  that  once  hedged  the  editorial  "we" 
long  since  departed. 

The  editor  dies,  even  as  the  actor,  and  leaves  no 
copy.  Editorial  reputations  have  been  as  ephem- 
eral as  the  publications  which  gave  them  contem- 
porary importance.  Without  going  as  far  back 
as  the  Freneaus  and  the  Callenders,  who  recalls 
the  names  of  Mordecai  Mannasseh  Noah,  of  Ed- 
win Crosswell  and  of  James  Watson  Webb?  In 
their  day  and  generation  they  were  influential  and 
distinguished  journalists.  There  are  dozens  of 
other  names  once  famous  but  now  forgotten; 
George  Wilkins  Kendall;  Gerard  Hallock;  Eras- 
tus  Brooks;  Alexander  Bullitt;  Barnwell  Rhett; 
Morton  McMichael;  George  William  Childs,  even 
Thomas  Ritchie,  Duff  Green  and  Amos  Kendall. 
"Gales  and  Seaton"  sounds  like  a  trade-mark;  but 
it  stood  for  not  a  little  and  lasted  a  long  time  in 

[225] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  National  Capital,  where  newspaper  vassalage 
and  the  public  printing  went  hand-in-hand. 

For  a  time  the  duello  flourished.  There  were 
frequent  "affairs  of  honor" — notably  about  Rich- 
mond in  Virginia  and  Charleston  in  South  Caro- 
lina— sometimes  fatal  meetings,  as  in  the  case  of 
John  H.  Pleasants  and  one  of  the  sons  of  Thomas 
Ritchie  in  which  Pleasants  was  killed,  and  the  yet 
more  celebrated  affair  between  Graves,  of  Ken- 
tucky, and  Cilley,  of  Maine,  in  which  Cilley  was 
killed;  Bladensburg  the  scene,  and  the  refusal  of 
Cilley  to  recognize  James  Watson  Webb  the  oc- 
casion. 

I  once  had  an  intimate  account  of  this  duel  with 
all  the  cruel  incidents  from  Henry  A.  Wise,  a  party 
to  it,  and  a  blood-curdling  narrative  it  made.  They 
fought  with  rifles  at  thirty  paces,  and  Cilley  fell 
on  the  third  fire.  It  did  much  to  discredit  duelling 
in  the  South.  The  story,  however,  that  Graves 
was  so  much  affected  that  thereafter  he  could  never 
sleep  in  a  darkened  chamber  had  no  foundation 
whatever,  a  fact  I  learned  from  my  associate  in 
the  old  Louisville  Journal  and  later  in  The  Courier- 
Journal,  Mr.  I  sham  Henderson,  who  was  a  broth- 
er-in-law of  Mr.  Graves,  his  sister,  Mrs.  Graves, 
[226] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

being  still  alive.  The  duello  died  at  length.  There 
was  never  sufficient  reason  for  its  being.  It  was 
both  a  vanity  and  a  fad.  In  Hopkinson  Smith's 
"Col.  Carter  of  Cartersville,"  its  real  character  is 
hit  off  to  the  life. 

II 

When  very  early,  rather  too  early,  I  found  my- 
self in  the  saddle,  Bennett  and  Greeley  and  Ray- 
mond in  New  York,  and  Medill  and  Storey  in  Chi- 
cago, were  yet  alive  and  conspicuous  figures  in  the 
newspaper  life  of  the  time.  John  Bigelow,  who 
had  retired  from  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  was 
Minister  to  France.  Halstead  was  coming  on,  but, 
except  as  a  correspondent,  Whitelaw  Reid  had  not 
"arrived."  The  like  was  true  of  "Joe"  McCul- 
lagh,  who,  in  the  same  character,  divided  the  news- 
paper reading  attention  of  the  country  with  George 
Alfred  Townsend  and  Donn  Piatt.  Joseph  Me- 
dill was  withdrawing  from  the  Chicago  Tribune  in 
favor  of  Horace  White,  presently  to  return  and  die 
in  harness — a  man  of  sterling  intellect  and  character 
— and  Wilbur  F.  Storey,  his  local  rival,  who  was 
beginning  to  show  signs  of  the  mental  malady  that, 
developed  into  monomania,  ultimately  ended  his  life 

[227] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

in  gloom  and  despair,  wrecking  one  of  the  finest 
newspaper  properties  outside  of  New  York.  Wil- 
liam R.  Nelson,  who  was  to  establish  a  really  great 
newspaper  in  Kansas  City,  was  still  a  citizen  of  Ft. 
Wayne. 

James  Gordon  Bennett,  the  elder,  seemed  then 
to  me,  and  has  always  seemed,  the  real  founder  of 
the  modern  newspaper  as  a  vehicle  of  popular  infor- 
mation, and,  in  point  of  apprehension,  at  least, 
James  Gordon  Bennett,  the  younger,  did  not  fall 
behind  his  father.  What  was,  and  might  have  been 
regarded  and  dismissed  as  a  trivial  slander  drove 
him  out  of  New  York  and  made  him  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  a  resident  of  Paris,  where  I  was 
wont  to  meet  and  know  much  of  him. 

The  New  York  Herald,  under  father  and  son, 
attained  enormous  prosperity,  prestige  and  real 
power.  It  suffered  chiefly  from  what  they  call  in 
Ireland  "absentee  landlordism."  Its  "proprietor," 
for  he  never  described  himself  as  its  "editor,"  was 
a  man  of  exquisite  sensibilities — a  "despot"  of 
course — whom  nature  created  for  a  good  citizen,  a 
good  husband  and  the  head  of  a  happy  domestic 
fabric.  He  should  have  married  the  woman  of  his 
choice,  for  he  was  deeply  in  love  with  her  and  never 
[228] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ceased  to  love  her,  forty  years  later  leaving  her  in 
his  will  a  handsome  legacy. 

Crossing  the  ocean  with  the  "Commodore,"  as  he 
was  called  by  his  familiars,  not  long  after  he  had 
taken  up  his  residence  abroad,  naturally  we  fell  oc- 
casionally into  shop  talk.  "What  would  you  do," 
he  once  said,  "if  you  owned  the  Herald?"  "Why," 
I  answered,  "I  would  stay  in  New  York  and  edit 
it;"  and  then  I  proceeded,  "but  you  mean  to  ask  me 
what  I  think  you  ought  to  do  with  it?"  "Yes,"  he 
said,  "that  is  about  the  size  of  it." 

"Well,  Commodore,"  I  answered,  "if  I  were  you, 
when  we  get  in  I  would  send  for  John  Cockerill  and 
make  him  managing  editor,  and  for  John  Young, 
and  put  him  in  charge  of  the  editorial  page,  and 
then  I  would  go  and  lose  myself  in  the  wilds  of 
Africa." 

He  adopted  the  first  two  of  these  suggestions. 
John  A.  Cockerill  was  still  under  contract  with  Jo- 
seph Pulitzer  and  could  not  accept  for  a  year  or 
more.  He  finally  did  accept  and  died  in  the  Ben- 
nett service.  John  Russell  Young  took  the  edi- 
torial page  and  was  making  it  "hum"  when  a  most 
unaccountable  thing  happened.  I  was  amazed  to 
receive  an  invitation  to  a  dinner  he  had  tendered 

[229] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  was  about  to  give  to  the  quondam  Virginian 
and  just  elected  New  York  Justice  Roger  A. 
Pryor.  "Is  Young  gone  mad,"  I  said  to  myself, 
"or  can  he  have  forgotten  that  the  one  man  of  all 
the  world  whom  the  House  of  Bennett  can  never 
forget,  or  forgive,  is  Roger  A.  Pryor?" 

The  Bennett-Pryor  quarrel  had  been  a  cause 
celebre  when  John  Young  was  night  editor  of  the 
Philadelphia  Press  and  I  was  one  of  its  Washing- 
ton correspondents.  Nothing  so  virulent  had  ever 
passed  between  an  editor  and  a  Congressman.  In 
one  of  his  speeches  Pryor  had  actually  gone  the 
length  of  rudely  referring  to  Mrs.  James  Gordon 
Bennett. 

The  dinner  was  duly  given.  But  it  ended  John's 
connection  with  the  Herald  and  his  friendly  rela- 
tions with  the  owner  of  the  Herald.  The  incident 
might  be  cited  as  among  "The  Curiosities  of  Jour- 
nalism," if  ever  a  book  with  that  title  is  written. 
John's  "break"  was  so  bad  that  I  never  had  the 
heart  to  ask  him  how  he  could  have  perpetrated  it. 

in 

The  making  of  an  editor  is  a  complex  affair. 
Poets  and  painters  are  said  to  be  born.    Editors , 
[230] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  orators  are  made.  Many  essential  elements 
enter  into  the  editorial  fabrication ;  need  to  be  con- 
centrated upon  and  embodied  by  a  single  individual, 
and  even,  with  these,  environment  is  left  to  supply 
the  opportunity  and  give  the  final  touch. 

Aptitude,  as  the  first  ingredient,  goes  without 
saying  of  every  line  of  human  endeavor.  We  have 
the  authority  of  the  adage  for  the  belief  that  it  is 
not  possible  to  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear. 
Yet  have  I  known  some  unpromising  tyros  mature 
into  very  capable  workmen. 

The  modern  newspaper,  as  we  know  it,  may  be 
fairly  said  to  have  been  the  invention  of  James 
Gordon  Bennett,  the  elder.  Before  him  there  were 
journals,  not  newspapers.  When  he  died  he  had 
developed  the  news  scheme  in  kind,  though  not  in 
the  degree  that  we  see  so  elaborate  and  re- 
splendent in  New  York  and  other  of  the  leading 
centers  of  population!  Mr.  Bennett  had  led  a 
vagrant  and  varied  life  when  he  started  the  Herald. 
He  had  been  many  things  by  turns,  including  a 
writer  of  verses  and  stories,  but  nothing  very  suc- 
cessful nor  very  long.  At  length  he  struck  a  cen- 
tral idea — a  really  great,  original  idea — the  idea  of 
printing  the  news  of  the  day,  comprising  the  His- 

[231] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

tory  of  Yesterday,  fully  and  fairly,  without  fear 
or  favor.  He  was  followed  by  Greeley  and  Ray- 
mond— making  a  curious  and  very  dissimilar  trium- 
virate— and,  at  longer  range,  by  Prentice  and  For- 
ney, by  Bowles  and  Dana,  Storey,  Medill  and  Hal- 
stead.  All  were  marked  men ;  Greeley  a  writer  and 
propagandist;  Raymond  a  writer,  declaimer  and 
politician;  Prentice  a  wit  and  partisan;  Dana  a 
scholar  and  an  organizer;  Bowles  a  man  both  of 
letters  and  affairs.  The  others  were  men  of  all 
work,  writing  and  fighting  their  way  to  the  front, 
but  possessing  the  "nose  for  news,"  using  the  Ben- 
nett formula  and  rescript  as  the  basis  of  their  seri- 
ous efforts,  and  never  losing  sight  of  it.  Forney 
had  been  a  printer.  Medill  and  Storey  were  caught 
young  by  the  lure  of  printer's  ink.  Bowles  was 
born  and  reared  in  the  office  of  the  Springfield  Re- 
publican, founded  by  his  father,  and  Halstead,  a 
cross  betwixt  a  pack  horse  and  a  race  horse,  was 
broken  to  harness  before  he  was  out  of  his  teens. 

Assuming  journalism,  equally  with  medicine  and 
law,  to  be  a  profession,  it  is  the  only  profession  in 
which  versatility  is  not  a  disadvantage.  Specialism 
at  the  bar,  or  by  the  bedside,  leads  to  perfection 
and  attains  results.  The  great  doctor  is  the  great 
[232] 


HENRY    WATTERSON FROM    A    PAINTING    BY    LOUIS    MARK 

IN    THE    MANHATTAN    CLUB,    NEW    YORK 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

surgeon  or  the  great  prescriptionist — he  cannot  be 
great  in  both — and  the  great  lawyer  is  rarely  great, 
if  ever,  as  counselor  and  orator. 

The  great  editor  is  by  no  means  the  great  writer. 
But  he  ought  to  be  able  to  write  and  must  be  a 
judge  of  writing.  The  newspaper  office  is  a  little 
kingdom.  The  great  editor  needs  to  know  and  does 
know  every  range  of  it  between  the  editorial  room, 
the  composing  room  and  the  pressroom.  He  must 
hold  well  in  hand  everybody  and  every  function, 
having  risen,  as  it  were,  step-by-step  from  the 
ground  floor  to  the  roof.  He  should  be  level- 
headed, yet  impressionable;  sympathetic,  yet  self- 
possessed  ;  able  quickly  to  sift,  detect  and  discrimi- 
nate; of  various  knowledge,  experience  and  inter- 
est; the  cackle  of  the  adjacent  barnyard  the  noise 
of  the  world  to  his  eager  mind  and  pliant  ear. 
Nothing  too  small  for  him  to  tackle,  nothing  too 
great,  he  should  keep  to  the  middle  of  the  road  and 
well  in  rear  of  the  moving  columns;  loving  his  art 
— for  such  it  is — for  art's  sake;  getting  his  suffi- 
ciency, along  with  its  independence,  in  the  public 
approval  and  patronage,  seeking  never  anything 
further  for  himself.  Disinterestedness  being  the 
soul  of  successful  journalism,  unselfish  devotion  to 

[233] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

every  noble  purpose  in  public  and  private  life,  he 
should  say  to  preferment,  as  to  bribers,  "get  behind 
me,  Satan."  Whitelaw  Reid,  to  take  a  ready  and 
conspicuous  example,  was  a  great  journalist,  but 
rather  early  in  life  he  abandoned  journalism  for 
office  and  became  a  figure  in  politics  and  diplomacy 
so  that,  as  in  the  case  of  Franklin,  whose  example 
and  footsteps  in  the  main  he  followed,  he  will  be 
remembered  rather  as  the  Ambassador  than  as  the 
Editor. 

More  and  more  must  these  requirements  be  ful- 
filled by  the  aspiring  journalist.  As  the  world 
passes  from  the  Rule  of  Force — force  of  prowess, 
force  of  habit,  force  of  convention — to  the  Rule 
of  Numbers,  the  daily  journal  is  destined,  if  it  sur- 
vives as  a  power,  to  become  the  teacher — the  very 
Bible — of  the  people.  The  people  are  already  be- 
ginning to  distinguish  between  the  wholesome  and 
the  meretricious  in  their  newspapers.  Newspaper 
owners,  likewise,  are  beginning  to  realize  the  value 
of  character.  Instances  might  be  cited  where  the 
public,  discerning  some  sinister  but  unseen  power 
behind  its  press,  has  slowly  yet  surely  withdrawn 
its  confidence  and  support.  However  impersonal  it 
pretends  to  be,  with  whatever  of  mystery  it  affects 
[234] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  envelop  itself,  the  public  insists  upon  some  visible 
presence.  In  some  States  the  law  requires  it.  Thus 
"personal  journalism"  cannot  be  escaped,  and 
whether  the  "one-man  power"  emanates  from  the 
Counting  Room  or  the  Editorial  Room,  as  they  are 
called,  it  must  be  clear  and  answerable,  responsive 
to  the  common  weal,  and,  above  all,  trustworthy. 

IV 

John  Weiss  Forney  was  among  the  most  con- 
spicuous men  of  his  time.  He  was  likewise  one  of 
the  handsomest.  By  nature  and  training  a  jour- 
nalist, he  played  an  active,  not  to  say  an  equivocal, 
part  in  public  life — at  the  outset  a  Democratic  and 
then  a  Republican  leader. 

Born  in  the  little  town  of  Lancaster,  it  was  his 
mischance  to  have  attached  himself  early  in  life  to 
the  fortunes  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  whom  he  long  served 
with  fidelity  and  effect.  But  when  Mr.  Buchanan 
came  to  the  Presidency,  Forney,  who  aspired  first 
to  a  place  in  the  Cabinet,  which  was  denied  him, 
and  then  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate,  for  which  he  was 
beaten — through  flagrant  bribery,  as  the  story  ran 
— was  left  out  in  the  cold.  Thereafter  he  became 
something  of  a  political  adventurer. 

[235] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

The  days  of  the  newspaper  "organ"  aproached 
their  end.  Forney's  occupation,  like  Othello's,  was 
gone,  for  he  was  nothing  if  not  an  organ  grinder. 
Facile  with  pen  and  tongue,  he  seemed  a  born  cour- 
tier— a  veritable  Dalgetty,  whose  loyal  devotion  to 
his  knight-at-arms  deserved  better  recognition  than 
the  cold  and  wary  Pennsylvania  chieftain  was  will- 
ing to  give.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  Forney's 
character  furnished  reasonable  excuse  for  this  neg- 
lect and  apparent  ingratitude.  The  row  between 
them,  however,  was  party  splitting.  As  the  friend 
and  backer  of  Douglas,  and  later  along  a  brilliant 
journalistic  soldier  of  fortune,  Forney  did  as  much 
as  any  other  man  to  lay  the  Democratic  party  low. 

I  can  speak  of  him  with  a  certain  familiarity  and 
authority,  for  I  was  one  of  his  "boys."  I  admired 
him  greatly  and  loved  him  dearly.  Most  of  the 
young  newspaper  men  about  Philadelphia  and 
Washington  did  so.  He  was  an  all-around  modern 
journalist  of  the  first  class.  Both  as  a  newspaper 
writer  and  creator  and  manager,  he  stood  upon  the 
front  line,  rating  with  Bennett  and  Greeley  and 
Raymond.  He  first  entertained  and  then  cultivated 
the  thirst  for  office,  which  proved  the  undoing  of 
Greeley  and  Raymond,  and  it  proved  his  undoing. 
[236] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

He  had  a  passion  for  politics.  He  would  shine  in 
public  life.  If  he  could  not  play  first  fiddle  he 
would  take  any  other  instrument.  Thus  failing  of 
a  Senatorship,  he  was  glad  to  get  the  Secretary- 
ship of  the  Senate,  having  been  Clerk  of  the  House. 

He  was  bound  to  be  in  the  orchestra.  In  those 
days  newspaper  independence  was  little  known. 
Mr.  Greeley  was  willing  to  play  bottle-holder  to 
Mr.  Seward,  Mr.  Prentice  to  Mr.  Clay.  James 
Gordon  Bennett,  the  elder,  and  later  his  son,  James 
Gordon  Bennett,  the  younger,  challenged  this  kind 
of  servility.  The  Herald  stood  at  the  outset  of  its 
career  manfully  in  the  face  of  unspeakable  obloquy 
against  it.  The  public  understood  it  and  rose  to  it. 
The  time  came  when  the  elder  Bennett  was  to  at- 
tain official  as  well  as  popular  recognition.  Mr. 
Lincoln  offered  him  the  French  mission  and  Mr. 
Bennett  declined  it.  He  was  rich  and  famous, 
and  to  another  it  might  have  seemed  a  kind  of 
crowning  glory.  To  him  it  seemed  only  a  coming 
down — a  badge  of  servitude — a  lowering  of  the  flag 
of  independent  journalism  under  which,  and  under 
which  alone,  he  had  fought  all  his  life. 

Charles  A.  Dana  was  not  far  behind  the  Ben- 
netts in  his  independence.    He  well  knew  what  par- 

[237] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ties  and  politicians  are.  The  most  scholarly  and 
accomplished  of  American  journalists,  he  made  the 
Sun  "shine  for  all,"  and,  during  the  years  of  his 
active  management,  a  most  prosperous  property.  It 
happened  that  whilst  I  was  penny-a-lining  in  New 
York  I  took  a  piece  of  space  work — not  very  com- 
mon in  those  days — to  the  Tribune  and  received  a 
few  dollars  for  it.  Ten  years  later,  meeting  Mr. 
Dana  at  dinner,  I  recalled  the  circumstance,  and 
thenceforward  we  became  the  best  of  friends. 
Twice  indeed  we  had  runabouts  together  in  foreign 
lands.  His  house  in  town,  and  the  island  home 
called  Dorsoris,  which  he  had  made  for  himself, 
might  not  inaptly  be  described  as  very  shrines  of 
hospitality  and  art,  the  master  of  the  house  a  vir- 
tuoso in  music  and  painting  no  less  than  in  letters. 
One  might  meet  under  his  roof  the  most  diverse 
people,  but  always  interesting  and  agreeable  peo- 
ple. Perhaps  at  times  he  carried  his  aversions  a 
little  too  far.  But  he  had  reasons  for  them,  and  a 
man  of  robust  temperament  and  habit,  it  was  not 
in  him  to  sit  down  under  an  injury,  or  fancied  in- 
jury. I  never  knew  a  more  efficient  journalist. 
What  he  did  not  know  about  a  newspaper,  was 
scarcely  worth  knowing. 
[238] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

In  my  day  Journalism  has  made  great  strides.  It 
has  become  a  recognized  profession.  Schools  of 
special  training  are  springing  up  here  and  there. 
Several  of  the  universities  have  each  its  College  of 
Journalism.  The  tendency  to  discredit  these,  which 
was  general  and  pronounced  at  the  start,  lowers  its 
tone  and  grows  less  confident. 

Assuredly  there  is  room  for  special  training  to- 
ward the  making  of  an  editor.  Too  often  the  news- 
paper subaltern  obtaining  promotion  through  apti- 
tudes peculiarly  his  own,  has  failed  to  acquire  even 
the  most  rudimentary  knowledge  of  his  art.  He  has 
been  too  busy  seeking  "scoops"  and  doing  "stunts" 
to  concern  himself  about  perspectives,  principles, 
causes  and  effects,  probable  impressions  and  conse- 
quences, or  even  to  master  the  technical  details 
which  make  such  a  difference  in  the  preparation 
of  matter  intended  for  publication  and  popular 
perusal.  The  School  of  Journalism  may  not  be  al- 
ways able  to  give  him  the  needful  instruction.  But 
it  can  set  him  in  the  right  direction  and  better  pre- 
pare him  to  think  and  act  for  himself. 


[239] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-EIGHTH 

BULLIES   AND  BRAGGARTS — SOME   KENTUCKY   ILLUS- 
TRATIONS  THE  OLD  HOUSE THE  THROCKMOR- 

TONS — A       EAMOUS       SURGEON — "OLD       HELL'S 
DELIGHT." 


I  DO  not  believe  that  the  bully  and  braggart  is 
more  in  evidence  in  Kentucky  and  Texas  than 
in  other  Commonwealths  of  the  Union,  except  that 
each  is  by  the  space  writers  made  the  favorite  arena 
of  his  exploits  and  adopted  as  the  scene  of  the  comic 
stories  told  at  his  expense.  The  son-of-a-gun  from 
Bitter  Creek,  like  the  "elegant  gentleman"  from 
the  Dark  and  Bloody  Ground,  represents  a  certain 
type  to  be  found  more  or  less  developed  in  each  and 
every  State  of  the  Union.  He  is  not  always  a 
coward.  Driven,  as  it  were,  to  the  wall,  he  will 
often  make  good. 

He  is  as  a  rule  in  quest  of  adventures.    He  enters 
[240] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  village  from  the  countryside  and  approaches  the 
melee.  "Is  it  a  free  fight?"  says  he.  Assured  that 
it  is,  "Count  me  in,"  says  he.  Ten  minutes  later, 
"Is  it  still  a  free  fight?"  he  says,  and,  again  assured 
in  the  affirmative,  says  he,  "Count  me  out." 

Once  the  greatest  of  bullies  provoked  old  Aaron 
Pennington,  "the  strongest  man  in  the  world,"  who 
struck  out  from  the  shoulder  and  landed  his  victim 
in  the  middle  of  the  street.  Here  he  lay  in  a  help- 
less heap  until  they  carted  him  off  to  the  hospital, 
where  for  a  day  or  two  he  flickered  between  life  and 
death.  "Foh  God,"  said  Pennington,  "I  barely 
teched  him." 

This  same  bully  threatened  that  when  a  certain 
mountain  man  came  to  town  he  would  "finish  him." 
The  mountain  man  came.  He  was  enveloped  in  an 
old-fashioned  cloak,  presumably  concealing  his 
armament,  and  walked  about  ostentatiously  in  the 
proximity  of  his  boastful  foeman,  who  remained  as 
passive  as  a  lamb.  When,  having  failed  to  provoke 
a  fight,  he  had  taken  himself  off,  an  onlooker  said : 
"Bill,  I  thought  you  were  going  to  do  him  up?" 

"But,"  says  Bill,  "did  you  see  him?" 

"Yes,  I  saw  him.    What  of  that?" 

[241] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

"Why,"  exclaimed  the  bully,  "that  man  was  a 
walking  arsenal." 

Aaron  Pennington,  the  strong  man  just  men- 
tioned, was,  in  his  younger  days,  a  river  pilot.  Billy 
Ilite,  a  mite  of  a  man,  was  clerk.  They  had  a  dis- 
agreement, when  Aaron  told  Billy  that  if  he  caught 
him  on  "the  harrican  deck,"  he  would  pitch  him 
overboard.  The  next  day  Billy  appeared  whilst 
Aaron,  off  duty,  was  strolling  up  and  down  outside 
the  pilot-house,  and  strolled  offensively  in  his  wake. 
Never  a  hostile  glance  or  a  word  from  Aaron.  At 
last,  tired  of  dumb  show,  Billy  broke  forth  with  a 
torrent  of  imprecation  closing  with  "When  are  you 
going  to  pitch  me  off  the  boat,  you  blankety-blank 
son-of-a-gun  and  coward?" 

Aaron  Pennington  was  a  brave  man.  He  was 
both  fearless  and  self-possessed.  He  paused,  gazed 
quizzically  at  his  little  tormentor,  and  says  he: 
"Billy,  you  got  a  pistol,  and  you  want  to  get  a  pre- 
text to  shoot  me,  and  I  ain't  going  to  give  it  to  you." 

II 

Among  the  hostels  of  Christendom  the  Gait 
House,  of  Louisville,  for  a  long  time  occupied  a 
foremost  place  and  held  its  own.     It  was  burned 

[242] 


"MAXtSE  HENRY" 

to  the  ground  fifty  years  ago  and  a  new  Gait  House 
was  erected,  not  upon  the  original  site,  but  upon 
the  same  street,  a  block  above,  and,  although  one  of 
the  most  imposing  buildings  in  the  world,  it  could 
never  be  made  to  thrive.  It  stands  now  a  rather 
useless  encumbrance — a  whited  sepulchre — a  mar- 
ble memorial  of  the  Solid  South  and  the  Kentucky 
that  was,  on  whose  portal  might  truthfully  appear 
the  legend: 

<eA  jolly  place  it  was  in  days  of  old, 
But  something  ails  it  now" 

Aris  Throckmorton,  its  manager  in  the  Thirties, 
the  Forties  and  the  Fifties,  was  a  personality  and 
a  personage.  The  handsomest  of  men  and  the  most 
illiterate,  he  exemplified  the  characteristics  and  pe- 
culiarities of  the  days  of  the  river  steamer  and  the 
stage  coach,  when  "mine  host"  felt  it  his  duty  to 
make  the  individual  acquaintance  of  his  patrons  and 
each  and  severally  to  look  after  their  comfort. 
Many  stories  are  told  at  his  expense;  of  how  he 
made  a  formal  call  upon  Dickens — it  was,  in  point 
of  fact,  Marryatt — in  his  apartment,  to  be  coolly 
told  that  when  its  occupant  wanted  him  he  would 

[243] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

ring  for  him;  and  of  how,  investiagting  a  strange 
box  which  had  newly  arrived  from  Florida,  the  pre- 
vailing opinion  being  that  the  live  animal  within 
was  an  alligator,  he  exclaimed,  "Alligator,  hell;  it's 
a  scorponicum."  He  died  at  length,  to  be  succeeded 
by  his  son  John,  a  very  different  character.  And 
thereby  hangs  a  tale. 

John  Throckmorton,  like  Aris,  his  father,  was 
one  of  the  handsomest  of  men.  Perhaps  because 
he  was  so  he  became  the  victim  of  one  of  the 
strangest  of  feminine  whimsies  and  human  freaks. 
There  was  a  young  girl  in  Louisville,  named  Ellen 
Godwin.  Meeting  him  at  a  public  ball  she  fell 
violently  in  love  with  him.  As  Throckmorton  did 
not  reciprocate  this,  and  refused  to  pursue  the  ac- 
quaintance, she  began  to  dog  his  footsteps.  She 
dressed  herself  in  deep  black  and  took  up  a  position 
in  front  of  the  Gait  House,  and  when  he  came  out 
and  wherever  he  went  she  followed  him.  No  matter 
how  long  he  stayed,  when  he  reappeared  she  was  on 
the  spot  and  watch.  He  took  himself  away  to  San 
Francisco.  It  was  but  the  matter  of  a  few  weeks 
when  she  was  there,  too.  He  hied  him  thence  to 
Liverpool,  and  as  he  stepped  upon  the  dock  there 
[244] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

she  was.    She  had  got  wind  of  his  going  and,  having 
caught  an  earlier  steamer,  preceded  him. 

Finally  the  War  of  Sections  arrived.  John 
Throckmorton  became  a  Confederate  officer,  and, 
being  able  to  keep  her  out  of  the  lines,  he  had  a  rest 
of  four  years.  But,  when  after  the  war  he  returned 
to  Louisville,  the  quarry  began  again. 

He  was  wont  to  call  her  "Old  Hell's  Delight." 
Finally,  one  night,  as  he  was  passing  the  market, 
she  rushed  out  and  rained  upon  him  blow  after  blow 
with  a  frozen  rabbit. 

Then  the  authorities  took  a  hand.  She  was  ar- 
raigned for  disorderly  conduct  and  brought  before 
the  Court  of  Police.  Then  the  town,  which  knew 
nothing  of  the  case  and  accepted  her  goings  on  as 
proof  of  wrong,  rose ;  and  she  had  a  veritable  ova- 
tion, coming  away  with  flying  colors.  This,  how- 
ever, served  to  satisfy  her.  Thenceforward  she  de- 
sisted and  left  poor  John  Throckmorton  in  peace. 

I  knew  her  well.  She  used  once  in  a  while  to 
come  and  see  me,  having  some  story  or  other  to  tell. 
On  one  occasion  I  said  to  her:  "Ellen,  why  do  you 
pursue  this  man  in  this  cruel  way?  What  possible 
good  can  it  do  you?"  She  looked  me  straight  in  the 
eye  and  slowly  replied:  "Because  I  love  him." 

[245] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  investigated  the  case  closely  and  thoroughly 
and  was  assured,  as  he  had  assured  me,  that  he  had 
never  done  her  the  slightest  wrong.  She  had,  on 
occasion,  told  me  the  same  thing,  and  this  I  fully 
believed. 

He  was  a  man,  every  inch  of  him,  and  a  gentle- 
man through  and  through — the  very  soul  of  honor 
in  his  transactions  of  every  sort — most  highly  re- 
spected and  esteemed  wherever  he  was  known — yet 
his  life  was  made  half  a  failure  and  wholly  unhappy 
by  this  "crazy  Jane,"  the  general  public  taking  ap- 
pearances for  granted  and  willing  to  believe  noth- 
ing good  of  one  who,  albeit  proud  and  honorable, 
held  defiantly  aloof,  disdaining  self-defense. 

On  the  whole  I  have  not  known  many  men  more 
unfortunate  than  John  Throckmorton,  who,  but  for 
"Old  Hell's  Delight,"  would  have  encountered  little 
obstacle  to  the  pursuit  of  prosperity  and  happiness. 

in 

Another  interesting  Kentuckian  of  this  period 
was  John  Thompson  Gray.  He  was  a  Harvard 
man — a  wit,  a  scholar,  and,  according  to  old  South- 
ern standards,  a  chevalier.  Handsome  and  gifted, 
he  had  the  disastrous  misfortune  just  after  leaving 
[246] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

college  to  kill  his  friend  in  a  duel — a  mortal  affair 
growing,  as  was  usual  in  those  days,  out  of  a  trivial 
cause — and  this  not  only  saddened  his  life,  but,  in 
its  ambitious  aims,  shadowed  and  defeated  it.  His 
university  comrades  had  fully  counted  on  his  mak- 
ing a  great  career.  Being  a  man  of  fortune,  he  was 
able  to  live  like  a  gentleman  without  public  prefer- 
ment, and  this  he  did,  except  to  his  familiars  aloof 
and  sensitive  to  the  last. 

William  Preston,  the  whilom  Minister  to  Spain 
and  Confederate  General,  and  David  Yandell,  the 
eminent  surgeon,  were  his  devoted  friends,  and  a 
notable  trio  they  made.  Stoddard  Johnston,  Boyd 
Winchester  and  I — very  much  younger  men — sat 
at  their  feet  and  immensely  enjoyed  their  brilliant 
conversation. 

Dr.  Yandell  was  not  only  as  proclaimed  by  Dr. 
Gross  and  Dr.  Sayre  the  ablest  surgeon  of  his  day, 
but  he  was  also  a  gentleman  of  varied  experience 
and  great  social  distinction.  He  had  studied  long 
in  Paris  and  was  the  pal  of  John  Howard  Payne, 
the  familiar  friend  of  Lamartine,  Dumas  and  Le- 
maitre.  He  knew  Beranger,  Hugo  and  Balzac.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  three  Kentuckians  less  pro- 
vincial, more  unaffected,   scintillant  and  worldly 

[247] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

wise   than    he   and   William   Preston   and   John 
Thompson  Gray. 

Indeed  the  list  of  my  acquaintances — many  of 
them  intimates — some  of  them  friends — would  be, 
if  recounted,  a  long  one,  not  mentioning  the  foreign- 
ers, embracing  a  diverse  company  all  the  way  from 
Chunkey  Towles  to  Grover  Cleveland,  from  Wake 
Holman  to  John  Pierpont  Morgan,  from  John 
Chamberlin  to  Thomas  Edison.  I  once  served  as 
honorary  pall-bearer  to  a  professional  gambler  who 
was  given  a  public  funeral;  a  man  who  had 
been  a  gallant  Confederate  soldier;  whom  nature 
intended  for  an  artist,  and  circumstance  diverted 
into  a  sport ;  but  who  retained  to  the  last  the  poetic 
fancy  and  the  spirit  of  the  gallant,  leaving  behind 
him,  when  he  died,  like  a  veritable  cavalier,  chiefly 
debts  and  friends.  He  was  not  a  bad  sort  in  busi- 
ness, as  the  English  say,  nor  in  conviviality.  But 
in  fighting  he  was  "a  dandy."  The  goody-goody 
philosophy  of  the  namby-pamby  takes  an  extreme 
and  unreal  view  of  life.  It  flies  to  extremes.  There 
are  middle  men.  Travers  used  to  describe  one  of 
these,  whom  he  did  not  wish  particularly  to 
emphasize,  as  "a  fairly  clever  son-of-a-gun." 

[248] 


CHAPTER  THE  TWENTY-NINTH 

ABOUT    POLITICAL    CONVENTIONS,    STATE    AND    NA- 
TIONAL  "OLD  BEN  BUTLER" HIS  APPEARANCE 

AS  A  TROUBLE-MAKER  IN  THE  DEMOCRATIC  NA- 
TIONAL CONVENTION  OF  1892 TARIFA  AND  THE 

TARIFF SPAIN  AS  A  FRIGHTFUL  EXAMPLE. 


I  HAVE  had  a  liberal  education  in  party  con- 
vocations, State  and  national.  In  those  of  1860 
I  served  as  an  all-around  newspaper  reporter.  A 
member  of  each  National  Democratic  Convention 
from  1876  to  1892,  presiding  over  the  first,  and  in 
those  of  1880  and  1888  chosen  chairman  of  the 
Resolutions  Committee,  I  wrote  many  of  the  plat- 
forms and  had  a  decisive  voice  in  all  of  them. 

In  1880  I  had  stood  for  the  renomination  of  "the 
Old  Ticket,"  that  is,  Tilden  and  Hendricks,  mak- 
ing the  eight-to- seven  action  of  the  Electoral  Tri- 
bunal of  1877  in  favor  of  Hayes  and  Wheeler  the 

[249] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

paramount  issue.  It  seems  strange  now  that  any 
one  should  have  contested  this.  Yet  it  was  stoutly 
contested.  Mr.  Tilden  settled  all  dispute  by  send- 
ing a  letter  to  the  convention  declining  to  be  a  can- 
didate. In  answer  to  this  I  prepared  a  resolution 
of  regret  to  be  incorporated  in  the  platform.  It 
raised  stubborn  opposition.  David  A.  Wells  and 
Joseph  Pulitzer,  who  were  fellow  members  of  the 
committee,  were  with  me  in  my  contention,  but  the 
objection  to  making  it  a  part  of  the  platform  grew 
so  pronounced  that  they  thought  I  had  best  not 
insist  upon  it. 

The  day  wore  on  and  the  latent  opposition 
seemed  to  increase.  I  had  been  named  chairman 
of  the  committee  and  had  at  a  single  sitting  that 
morning  written  a  completed  platform.  Each 
plank  of  this  was  severally  and  closely  scrutinized. 
It  was  well  into  the  afternoon  before  we  reached  the 
plank  I  chiefly  cared  about.  When  I  read  this  the 
storm  broke.  Half  the  committee  rose  against  it. 
At  the  close,  with  more  heat  than  was  either  cour- 
teous or  tactful,  I  said:  "Gentlemen,  I  wish  to  do 
no  more  than  bid  farewell  to  a  leader  who  four 
years  ago  took  the  Democratic  party  at  its  lowest 
fortunes  and  made  it  a  power  again.  He  is  well 
[250] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

on  his  way  to  the  grave.  I  would  place  a  wreath 
of  flowers  on  that  grave.  I  ask  only  this  of  you. 
Refuse  me,  and  by  God,  I  will  go  to  that  mob 
yonder  and,  dead  or  alive,  nominate  him,  and  you 
will  be  powerless  to  prevent!" 

Mr.  Barksdale,  of  Mississippi,  a  suave  gentle- 
man, who  had  led  the  dissenters,  said,  "We  do  not 
refuse  you.  But  you  say  that  we  'regret'  Mr.  Til- 
den's  withdrawal.  Now  I  do  not  regret  it,  nor  do 
those  who  agree  with  me.  Could  you  not  substi- 
tute some  other  expression?" 

"I  don't  stand  on  words,"  I  answered.  "What 
would  you  suggest?" 

Mr.  Barksdale  said:  "Would  not  the  words  'We 
have  received  with  the  deepest  sensibility  Mr.  Til- 
den's  letter  of  withdrawal,'  answer  your  purpose?" 

"Certainly,"  said  I,  and  the  plank  in  the  plat- 
form, as  it  was  amended,  was  adopted  unanimously. 

Mr.  Tilden  did  not  die.  He  outlived  all  his  im- 
mediate rivals.  Four  years  later,  in  1884,  his  party 
stood  ready  again  to  put  him  at  its  head.  In  nomi- 
nating Mr.  Cleveland  it  thought  it  was  accepting 
his  dictation  reenforced  by  the  enormous  majority 
— nearly  200,000 — by  which  Mr.  Cleveland,  as  can- 
didate for  Governor,  had  carried  New  York  in  the 

[251] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

preceding  State  election.  Yet,  when  the  votes  in 
the  presidential  election  came  to  be  counted,  he 
carried  it,  if  indeed  he  carried  it  at  all,  by  less  than 
1,100  majority,  the  result  hanging  in  the  balance 
for  nearly  a  week. 

ii 

In  the  convention  of  1884,  which  met  at  Chicago, 
we  had  a  veritable  monkey-and-parrot  time.  It 
was  next  after  the  schism  in  Congress  between  the 
Democratic  factions  led  respectively  by  Carlisle 
and  Randall,  Carlisle  having  been  chosen  Speaker 
of  the  House  over  Randall. 

Converse,  of  Ohio,  appeared  in  the  Platform 
Committee  representing  Randall,  and  Morrison,  of 
Illinois,  and  myself,  representing  Carlisle.  I  was 
bent  upon  making  Morrison  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee. But  it  was  agreed  that  the  chairmanship 
should  be  held  in  abeyance  until  the  platform  had 
been  formulated  and  adopted.  The  subcommittee 
to  whom  the  task  was  delegated  sat  fifty-one  hours 
without  a  break  before  its  work  was  completed. 
Then  Morrison  was  named  chairman.  It  was  ar- 
ranged thereafter  between  Converse,  Morrison  and 
myself  that  when  the  agreed  report  was  made,  Con- 
verse and  I  should  have  each  what  time  he  required 
[252] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  say  what  was  desired  in  explanation,  I  to  close 
the  debate  and  move  the  previous  question.  At  this 
point  General  Butler  sidled  up.  "Where  do  I  come 
in?"  he  asked. 

"You  don't  get  in  at  all,  you  blasted  old  sinner," 
said  Morrison. 

"I  have  scriptural  warrant,"  General  Butler  said. 
"Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  the 
corn." 

"All  right,  old  man,"  said  Morrison,  good-hu- 
moredly,  "take  all  the  time  you  want." 

In  his  speech  before  the  convention  General  But- 
ler was  not  at  his  happiest,  and  in  closing  he  gave 
me  a  particularly  good  opening.  "If  you  adopt 
this  platform  of  my  friend  Watterson,"  he  said, 
"God  may  help  you,  but  I  can't." 

I  was  standing  by  his  side,  and,  it  being  my  turn, 
he  made  way  for  me,  and  I  said:  "During  the  last 
few  days  and  nights  of  agreeable,  though  rather 
irksome,  intercourse,  I  have  learned  to  love  General 
Butler,  but  I  must  declare  that  in  an  option  be- 
tween him  and  the  Almighty  I  have  a  prejudice  in 
favor  of  God." 

In  his  personal  intercourse,  General  Butler  was 
the  most  genial  of  men.     The  subcommittee  in 

[253] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

charge  of  the  preparation  of  a  platform  held  its 
meetings  in  the  drawing-room  of  his  hotel  apart- 
ment, and  he  had  constituted  himself  our  host  as 
well  as  our  colleague.  I  had  not  previously  met 
him.  It  was  not  long  after  we  came  together  be- 
fore he  began  to  call  me  by  my  Christian  name.  At 
one  stage  of  the  proceedings  when  by  substituting 
one  word  for  another  it  looked  as  though  we  might 
reach  an  agreement,  he  said  to  me:  "Henry,  what 
is  the  difference  between  'exclusively  for  public 
purposes'  and  'a  tariff  for  revenue  only'?" 

"I  know  of  none,"  I  answered. 

"Do  you  think  that  the  committee  have  found 
you  out?" 

"No,  I  scarcely  think  so." 

"Then  I  will  see  that  they  do,"  and  he  proceeded 
in  his  peculiarly  subtle  way  to  undo  all  that  we 
had  done,  prolonging  the  session  twenty-four  hours. 

He  was  an  able  man  and  a  lovable  man.  The 
missing  ingredient  was  serious  belief.  Just  after 
the  nomination  of  the  Breckinridge  and  Lane  Pres- 
idential ticket  in  1860,  I  heard  him  make  an  ultra- 
Southern  speech  from  Mr.  Breckinridge's  door- 
way. "What  do  you  think  of  that?"  I  asked  Andrew 
Johnson,  who  stood  by  me,  and  Johnson  answered 
[254] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

sharply,  with  an  oath:  "I  never  like  a  man  to  be 
for  me  more  than  I  am  for  myself."  I  have  been 
told  that  even  at  home  General  Butler  could  never 
acquire  the  public  confidence.  In  spite  of  his  con- 
ceded mentality  and  manliness  he  gave  the  impres- 
sion of  being  something  of  an  intellectual  sharper. 
He  was  charitable,  generous  and  amiable.  The 
famous  New  Orleans  order  which  had  made  him 
odious  to  the  women  of  the  South  he  had  issued  to 
warn  bad  women  and  protect  good  women.  As- 
suredly he  did  not  foresee  the  interpretation  that 
would  be  put  upon  it.  He  was  personally  popular 
in  Congress.  When  he  came  to  Washington  he 
dispensed  a  lavish  hospitality.  Such  radical  Dem- 
ocrats as  Beck  and  Knott  did  not  disdain  his  com- 
pany, became,  indeed,  his  familiars.  Yet,  curious 
to  relate,  a  Kentucky  Congressman  of  the  period 
lost  his  seat  because  it  was  charged  and  proven  that 
he  had  ridden  in  a  carriage  to  the  White  House 
with  the  Yankee  Boanerges  on  a  public  occasion. 

in 

Mere  party  issues  never  counted  with  me.  I  have 
read  too  much  and  seen  too  much.  At  my  present 
time  of  life  they  count  not  at  all.    I  used  to  think 

[255] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

that  there  was  a  principle  involved  between  the  dog- 
mas of  Free  Trade  and  Protection  as  they  were 
preached  by  their  respective  attorneys.  Yet  what 
was  either  except  the  ancient,  everlasting  scheme — 

— "The  good  old,  role — the  simple  plan,, 
That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power 
And  they  should  keep  who  can.3' 

How  little  wisdom  one  man  may  get  from  an- 
other man's  counsels,  one  nation  may  get  from 
another  nation's  history,  can  be  partly  computed 
when  we  reflect  how  often  our  personal  experience 
has  failed  in  warning  admonition. 

Temperament  and  circumstance  do  indeed  cut  a 
prodigious  figure  in  life.  Traversing  the  older 
countries,  especially  Spain,  the  most  illustrative, 
the  wayfarer  is  met  at  all  points  by  what  seems  not 
merely  the  logic  of  events,  but  the  common  law 
of  the  inevitable.  The  Latin  of  the  Sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  a  recrudescence  of  the  Roman  of  the  First. 
He  had  not,  like  the  Mongolian,  lived  long  enough 
to  become  a  stoic.  He  was  mainly  a  cynic  and  an 
adventurer.  Thence  he  flowered  into  a  sybarite. 
Coming  to  great  wealth  with  the  discoveries  of 
[256] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Columbus  and  the  conquests  of  Pizarro  and  Cortes, 
he  proceeded  to  enjoy  its  fruits  according  to  his 
fancy  and  the  fashion  of  the  times. 

He  erected  massive  shrines  to  his  deities.  He 
reared  noble  palaces.  He  built  about  his  cathedrals 
and  his  castles  what  were  then  thought  to  be  great 
cities,  walled  and  fortified.  He  was,  for  all  his 
self -sufficiency  and  pride,  short-sighted;  and  yet, 
until  they  arrived,  how  could  he  foresee  the  develop- 
ments of  artillery?  They  were  as  hidden  from  him 
as  three  centuries  later  the  wonders  of  electricity 
were  hidden  from  us. 

I  was  never  a  Free  Trader.  I  stood  for  a  tariff 
for  revenue  as  the  least  oppressive  and  safest  sup- 
port of  Government.  The  protective  system  in  the 
United  States,  responsible  for  our  unequal  distri- 
bution of  wealth,  took  at  least  its  name  from  Spain, 
and  the  Robber  Rarons,  as  I  used  to  call  the  Pro- 
tectionists of  Pennsylvania,  were  not  of  immediate 
German  origin. 

Truth  to  say,  both  on  land  and  water  Spain  has 
made  a  deal  of  history,  and  the  front  betwixt  Gi- 
braltar and  the  Isle  of  San  Fernando — Tangier  on 
one  side  and  the  Straits  of  Tarifa  on  the  other — 
Cape  Trafalgar,  where  Nelson  fought  the  famous 

[257] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

battle,  midway  between  them — has  had  its  share. 

Tarifa!  What  memories  it  invokes!  In  the 
olden  and  golden  days  of  primitive  man,  before  cor- 
poration lawyers  had  learned  how  to  frame  pillag- 
ing statutes,  and  rascally  politicians  to  bamboozle 
confiding  constituencies — thus  I  used  to  put  it — 
the  gentle  pirates  of  Tarifa  laid  broad  and  deep  the 
foundations  for  the  Protective  System  in  the 
United  States. 

It  was  a  fruitful  as  well  as  a  congenial  theme, 
and  I  rang  all  the  changes  on  it.  To  take  by  law 
from  one  man  what  is  his  and  give  it  to  another 
man  who  has  not  earned  it  and  has  no  right  to  it, 
I  showed  to  be  an  invention  of  the  Moors,  copied 
by  the  Spaniards  and  elevated  thence  into  political 
economy  by  the  Americans.  Tarifa  took  its  name 
from  Tarif -Ben-Malik,  the  most  enterprising  Rob- 
ber Baron  of  his  day,  and  thus  the  Lords  of  Tarifa 
were  the  progenitors  of  the  Robber  Barons  of  the 
Black  Forest,  New  England  and  Pittsburgh. 
Tribute  was  the  name  the  Moors  gave  their  rob- 
bery, which  was  open  and  aboveboard.  The  Coal 
Kings,  the  Steel  Kings  and  the  Oil  Kings  of  the 
modern  world  have  contrived  to  hide  the  process; 
but  in  Spain  the  palaces  of  their  forefathers  rise  in 
[258] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

lonely  and  solemn  grandeur  just  as  a  thousand 
years  hence  the  palaces  upon  the  Fifth  Avenue  side 
of  Central  Park  and  along  Riverside  Drive,  not  to 
mention  those  of  the  Schuylkill  and  the  Delaware, 
may  become  but  roosts  for  bats  and  owls,  and  the 
chronicler  of  the  Anthropophagi,  "whose  heads  do 
reach  the  skies,"  may  tell  how  the  voters  of  the 
Great  Republic  were  bought  and  sold  with  their 
own  money,  until  "Heaven  released  the  legions 
north  of  the  North  Pole,  and  they  swooped  down 
and  crushed  the  pulpy  mass  beneath  their  aveng- 
ing snowshoes." 

The  gold  that  was  gathered  by  the  Spaniards 
and  fought  over  so  valiantly  is  scattered  to  the  four 
ends  of  the  earth.  It  may  be  as  potent  to-day  as 
then ;  but  it  does  not  seem  nearly  so  heroic.  A  good 
deal  of  it  has  found  its  way  to  London,  which  a 
short  century  and  a  half  ago  "had  not,"  according 
to  Adam  Smith,  "sufficient  wealth  to  compete  with 
Cadiz."  We  have  had  our  full  share  without  fight- 
ing for  it.  Thus  all  things  come  to  him  who  con- 
trives and  waits. 

Meanwhile,  there  are  "groups"  and  "rings." 
And,  likewise,  "leaders"  and  "bosses."  What  do 
they  know  or  care  about  the  origins  of  wealth ;  about 

[259] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Venice;  about  Cadiz;  about  what  is  said  of  Wall 
Street?  The  Spanish  Main  was  long  ago  stripped 
of  its  pillage.  The  buccaneers  took  themselves  off 
to  keep  company  with  the  Vikings.  Yet,  away 
down  in  those  money  chests,  once  filled  with  what 
were  pieces  of  eight  and  ducats  and  doubloons,  who 
shall  say  that  spirits  may  not  lurk  and  ghosts  walk, 
one  old  freebooter  wheezing  to  another  old  free- 
booter: "They  order  these  things  better  in  the 
'States.'  " 

IV 

I  have  enjoyed  hugely  my  several  sojourns  in 
Spain.  The  Spaniard  is  unlike  any  other  Euro- 
pean. He  may  not  make  you  love  him.  But  you 
are  bound  to  respect  him. 

There  is  a  mansion  in  Seville  known  as  The 
House  of  Pontius  Pilate  because  part  of  the  re- 
mains of  the  abode  of  the  Roman  Governor  was 
brought  from  Jerusalem  and  used  in  a  building 
suited  to  the  dignity  of  a  Spanish  grandee  who  was 
also  a  Lord  of  Tarifa.  The  Duke  of  Medina  Celi, 
its  present  owner,  is  a  lineal  scion  of  the  old  pirati- 
cal crew.  The  mansion  is  filled  with  the  fruits  of 
many  a  foray.  There  are  plunder  from  Naples, 
where  one  ancestor  was  Viceroy,  and  treasures  from 
[260] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

the  temples  of  the  Aztecs  and  the  Incas,  where  two 
other  ancestors  ruled.  Every  coping  stone  and 
pillar  cost  some  mariner  of  the  Tarifa  Straits  a 
pot  of  money. 

Its  owner  is  a  pauper.  A  carekeeper  shows  it 
for  a  peseta  a  head.  To  such  base  uses  may  we 
come  at  last.  Yet  Seville  basks  in  the  sun  and 
smiles  on  the  flashing  waters  of  the  Guadalquivir, 
and  Cadiz  sits  serene  upon  the  green  hillsides  of 
San  Sebastian,  just  as  if  nothing  had  ever  hap- 
pened; neither  the  Barber  and  Carmen,  nor  Nelson 
and  Byron;  the  past  but  a  phantom;  the  present 
the  prosiest  of  prose-poems. 

There  are  canny  Spaniards  even  as  there  are 
canny  Scots,  who  grow  rich  and  prosper;  but  there 
is  never  a  Spaniard  who  does  not  regard  the  politi- 
cal fabric,  and  the  laws,  as  fair  game,  the  rule  be- 
ing always  "devil  take  the  hindmost,"  community 
of  interests  nowhere.  "The  good  old  vices  of 
Spain,"  that  is,  the  robbing  of  the  lesser  rogue  by 
the  greater  in  regulated  gradations  all  the  way 
from  the  King  to  the  beggar,  are  as  prevalent  and 
as  vital  as  ever  they  were.  Curiously  enough,  a 
tiny  stream  of  Hebraic  blood  and  Moorish  blood 
still  trickles  through  the  Spanish  coast  towns.    It 

[261] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

may  be  traced  through  the  nomenclature  in  spite  of 
its  Castilian  prefigurations  and  appendices,  which 
would  account  for  some  of  the  enterprise  and  ac- 
tivity that  show  themselves,  albeit  only  by  fits  and 
starts. 


[262] 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRTIETH 

THE  MAKERS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC LINCOLN,  JEFFER- 

SONj      CLAY      AND      WEBSTER THE       PROPOSED 

LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS THE    WILSONIAN   INCER- 
TITUDE— THE  "NEW  FREEDOM.' ' 


THE  makers  of  the  American  Republic  range 
themselves  in  two  groups — Washington, 
Franklin  and  Jefferson — Clay,  Webster  and 
Lincoln — each  of  whom,  having  a  genius  peculiarly 
his  own,  gave  himself  and  his  best  to  the  cause  of 
national  unity  and  independence. 

In  a  general  way  it  may  be  said  that  Washington 
created  and  Lincoln  saved  the  Union.  But  along 
with  Washington  and  Lincoln,  Clay  makes  a  good 
historic  third,  for  it  was  the  masterful  Kentuckian 
who,  joining  rare  foresight  to  surpassing  eloquence 
and  leading  many  eminent  men,  including  Webster, 
was  able  to  hold  the  legions  of  unrest  at  bay  during 
the  formative  period. 

There  are  those  who  call  these  great  men  "back 

[263] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

numbers,"  who  tell  us  we  have  left  the  past  behind 
us  and  entered  an  epoch  of  more  enlightened  prog- 
ress— who  would  displace  the  example  of  the  sim- 
ple lives  they  led  and  the  homely  truths  they  told, 
to  set  up  a  school  of  philosophy  which  had  made 
Athens  stare  and  Rome  howl,  and,  I  dare  say,  is 
causing  the  Old  Continentals  to  turn  over  in  their 
graves.  The  self-exploiting  spectacle  and  bizarre 
teaching  of  this  school  passes  the  wit  of  man  to 
fathom.  Professing  the  ideal  and  proposing  to  re- 
create the  Universe,  the  New  Freedom,  as  it  calls 
itself,  would  standardize  it.  The  effect  of  that  would 
be  to  desiccate  the  human  species  in  human  conceit. 
It  would  cheapen  the  very  harps  and  halos  in 
Heaven  and  convert  the  Day  of  Judgment  into  a 
moving  picture  show. 

I  protest  that  I  am  not  of  its  kidney.  In  point 
of  fact,  its  platitudes  "stick  in  my  gizzard."  I 
belong  the  rather  to  those  old-fashioned  ones — 

"Who  love  their  land  because  it  is  their  own, 
And  scorn  to  give  aught  other  reason  why; 
Who'd   shake  hands   with   a  king  upon  his 

throne, 
And  think  it  kindness  to  his  majesty." 
[264] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  have  many  rights — birthrights — to  speak  of 
Kentucky  as  a  Kentuckian,  beside  that  of  more 
than  fifty  years'  service  upon  what  may  be  fairly 
called  the  battle-line  of  the  Dark  and  Bloody 
Ground. 

My  grandmother's  father,  William  Mitchell 
Morrison,  had  raised  a  company  of  riflemen  in  the 
War  of  the  Revolution,  and,  after  the  War, 
marched  it  westward.  He  commanded  the  troops 
in  the  old  fort  at  Harrodsburg,  where  my  grand- 
mother was  born  in  1784.  He  died  a  general.  My 
grandfather,  James  Black's  father,  the  Rev.  James 
Black,  was  chaplain  of  the  fort.  He  remembered 
the  birth  of  the  baby  girl  who  was  to  become  his 
wife.  He  was  a  noble  stalwart— a  perfect  type  of 
the  hunters  of  Kentucky — who  could  bring  down  a 
squirrel  from  the  highest  bough  and  hit  a  bull's 
eye  at  a  hundred  yards  after  he  was  three  score 
and  ten. 

It  was  he  who  delighted  my  childhood  with  bear 
stories  and  properly  lurid  narrations  of  the  braves 
in  buckskin  and  the  bucks  in  paint  and  feathers, 
with  now  and  then  a  red-coat  to  give  pungency  and 
variety  to  the  tale.  He  would  sing  me  to  sleep  with 
hunting  songs.    He  would  take  me  with  him  afield 

[265] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  carry  the  game  bag,  and  I  was  the  only  one  of 
many  grandchildren  to  be  named  in  his  will.  In  my 
thoughts  and  in  my  dreams  he  has  been  with  me  all 
my  life,  a  memory  and  an  example,  and  an  ever 
glorious  inspiration. 

Daniel  Boone  and  Simon  Kenton  were  among 
my  earliest  heroes. 

II 

Born  in  a  Democratic  camp,  and  growing  to 
manhood  on  the  Democratic  side  of  a  political 
battlefield,  I  did  not  accept,  as  I  came  later  to 
realize,  the  transcendent  personal  merit  and  pub- 
lic service  of  Henry  Clay.  Being  of  Tennessee 
parentage,  perhaps  the  figure  of  Andrew  Jackson 
came  between ;  perhaps  the  rhetoric  of  Daniel  Web- 
ster. Once  hearing  me  make  some  slighting  re- 
mark of  the  Great  Commoner,  my  father,  a  life-long 
Democrat,  who,  on  opposing  sides,  had  served  in 
Congress  with  Mr.  Clay,  gently  rebuked  me.  "Do 
not  express  such  opinions,  my  son,"  he  said,  "they 
discredit  yourself.  Mr.  Clay  was  a  very  great  man 
— a  born  leader  of  men." 

It  was  certainly  he,  more  than  any  other  man, 
who  held  the  Union  together  until  the  time  arrived 
for  Lincoln  to  save  it. 
[266] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  made  no  such  mistake,  however,  with  respect  to 
Abraham  Lincoln.  From  the  first  he  appeared  to 
me  a  great  man,  a  born  leader  of  men.  His  death 
proved  a  blow  to  the  whole  country — most  of  all  to 
the  Southern  section  of  it.  If  he  had  lived  there 
would  have  been  no  Era  of  Reconstruction,  with 
its  repressive  agencies  and  oppressive  legislation; 
there  would  have  been  wanting  to  the  extremism  of 
the  time  the  bloody  cue  of  his  taking  off  to  mount 
the  steeds  and  spur  the  flanks  of  vengeance.  For 
Lincoln  entertained,  with  respect  to  the  rehabilita- 
tion of  the  Union,  the  single  wish  that  the  South- 
ern States — to  use  his  homely  phraseology — 
"should  come  back  home  and  behave  themselves," 
and  if  he  had  lived  he  would  have  made  this  wish 
effectual  as  he  made  everything  else  effectual  to 
which  he  addressed  himself. 

His  was  the  genius  of  common  sense.  Of 
perfect  intellectual  acuteness  and  aplomb,  he 
sprang  from  a  Virginia  pedigree  and  was  born 
in  Kentucky.  He  knew  all  about  the  South, 
its  institutions,  its  traditions  and  its  peculiar- 
ities. He  was  an  old-line  Whig  of  the  school  of 
Henry  Clay,  with  strong  Emancipation  leaning, 
never  an  Abolitionist.    "If  slavery  be  not  wrong," 

[267] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

he  said,  "nothing  is  wrong,"  but  he  also  said  and 
reiterated  it  time  and  again,  "I  have  no  prejudice 
against  the  Southern  people.  They  are  just  what 
we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If  slavery  did  not 
now  exist  among  them  they  would  not  introduce  it. 
If  it  did  now  exist  among  us,  we  would  not  instant- 
ly give  it  up." 

From  first  to  last  throughout  the  angry  debates 
preceding  the  War  of  Sections,  amid  the  passions 
of  the  War  itself,  not  one  vindictive,  proscriptive 
word  fell  from  his  tongue  or  pen,  whilst  during  its 
progress  there  was  scarcely  a  day  when  he  did  not 
project  his  great  personality  between  some  South- 
ern man  or  woman  and  danger. 

in 

There  has  been  much  discussion  about  what  did 
and  what  did  not  occur  at  the  famous  Hampton 
Roads  Conference.  That  Mr.  Lincoln  met  and  con- 
ferred with  the  official  representatives  of  the  Con- 
federate Government,  led  by  the  Vice  President  of 
the  Confederate  States,  when  it  must  have  been 
known  to  him  that  the  Confederacy  was  nearing  the 
end  of  its  resources,  is  sufficient  proof  of  the  breadth 
both  of  his  humanity  and  his  patriotism.  Yet  he 
[268] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

went  to  Fortress  Monroe  prepared  not  only  to  make 
whatever  concessions  toward  the  restoration  of 
Union  and  Peace  he  had  the  lawful  authority  to 
make,  but  to  offer  some  concessions  which  could  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  go  no  further  at  that  time 
than  his  personal  assurance.  His  constitutional 
powers  were  limited.  But  he  was  in  himself  the  em- 
bodiment of  great  moral  power. 

The  story  that  he  offered  payment  for  the  slaves 
— so  often  affirmed  and  denied — is  in  either  case 
but  a  quibble  with  the  actual  facts.  He  could  not 
have  made  such  an  offer  except  tentatively,  lack- 
ing the  means  to  carry  it  out.  He  was  not  given 
the  opportunity  to  make  it,  because  the  Confederate 
Commissioners  were  under  instructions  to  treat 
solely  on  the  basis  of  the  recognition  of  the 
independence  of  the  Confederacy.  The  confer- 
ence came  to  nought.  It  ended  where  it  began. 
But  there  is  ample  evidence  that  he  went  to 
Hampton  Roads  resolved  to  commit  himself  to  that 
proposition.  He  did,  according  to  the  official  re- 
ports, refer  to  it  in  specific  terms,  having  already 
formulated  a  plan  of  procedure.  This  plan  exists 
and  may  be  seen  in  his  own  handwriting.  It  em- 
braced a  joint  resolution  to  be  submitted  by  the 

[269] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

President  to  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  appro- 
priating $400,000,000  to  be  distributed  among  the 
Southern  States  on  the  basis  of  the  slave  population 
of  each  according  to  the  Census  of  1860,  and  a 
proclamation  to  be  issued  by  himself,  as  President, 
when  the  joint  resolution  had  been  passed  by  Con- 
gress. 

There  can  be  no  controversy  among  honest  stu- 
dents of  history  on  this  point.  That  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  to  Mr.  Stephens,  "Let  me  write  Union  at  the 
top  of  this  page  and  you  may  write  below  it  what- 
ever else  you  please,"  is  referable  to  Mr.  Stephens' 
statement  made  to  many  friends  and  attested  by  a 
number  of  reliable  persons.  But  that  he  medi- 
tated the  most  liberal  terms,  including  payment  for 
the  slaves,  rests  neither  upon  conjecture  nor  hear- 
say, but  on  documentary  proof.  It  may  be  argued 
that  he  could  not  have  secured  the  adoption  of  any 
such  plan;  but  of  his  purpose,  and  its  genuineness, 
there  can  be  no  question  and  there  ought  to  be  no 
equivocation. 

Indeed,   payment  for  the   slaves  had  been  all 

along  in  his  mind.    He  believed  the  North  equally 

guilty  with  the  South  for  the  original  existence  of 

slavery.    He  clearly  understood  that  the  Irrepres- 

[270] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

sible  Conflict  was  a  Conflict  of  systems,  not  a  merely 
sectional  and  partisan  quarrel.  He  was  a  just  man, 
abhorring  proscription:  an  old  Conscience  Whig, 
indeed,  who  stood  in  awe  of  the  Constitution  and 
his  oath  of  office.  He  wanted  to  leave  the  South 
no  right  to  claim  that  the  North,  finding  slave  labor 
unremunerative,  had  sold  its  negroes  to  the  South 
and  then  turned  about  and  by  force  of  arms  con- 
fiscated what  it  had  unloaded  at  a  profit.  He  fully 
recognized  slavery  as  property.  The  Proclamation 
of  Emancipation  was  issued  as  a  war  measure.  In 
his  message  to  Congress  of  December,  1862,  he  pro- 
posed payment  for  the  slaves,  elaborating  a  scheme 
in  detail  and  urging  it  with  copious  and  cogent 
argument.  "The  people  of  the  South,"  said  he,  ad- 
dressing a  Congress  at  that  moment  in  the  throes 
of  a  bloody  war  with  the  South,  "are  not  more  re- 
sponsible for  the  original  introduction  of  this  prop- 
erty than  are  the  people  of  the  North,  and,  when  it 
is  remembered  how  unhesitatingly  we  all  use  cotton 
and  sugar  and  share  the  profits  of  dealing  in  them, 
it  may  not  be  quite  safe  to  say  that  the  South  has 
been  more  responsible  than  the  North  for  its  con- 
tinuance." 

[271] 


'MARSE  HENRY" 


IV 


It  has  been  my  rule,  aim  and  effort  in  my  news- 
paper career  to  print  nothing  of  a  man  which  I 
would  not  say  to  his  face;  to  print  nothing  of  a 
man  in  malice ;  to  look  well  and  think  twice  before 
consigning  a  suspect  to  the  ruin  of  printer's  ink; 
to  respect  the  old  and  defend  the  weak;  and,  lastly, 
at  work  and  at  play,  daytime  and  nighttime,  to  be 
good  to  the  girls  and  square  with  the  boys,  for  hath 
it  not  been  written  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven? 

There  will  always  be  in  a  democracy  two  or  more 
sets  of  rival  leaders  to  two  or  more  differing  groups 
of  followers.  Hitherto  history  has  classified  these 
as  conservatives  and  radicals.  But  as  society  has 
become  more  and  more  complex  the  groups  have 
had  their  subdivisions.  As  a  consequence  specula- 
tive doctrinaries  and  adventurous  politicians  are  en- 
abled to  get  in  their  work  of  confusing  the  issues 
and  exploiting  themselves. 

"  'What  are  these  fireworks  for?'  asks  the  rustic 
in  the  parable.  'To  blind  the  eyes  of  the  people,' 
answers  the  cynic." 

I  would  not  say  aught  in  a  spirit  of  hostility  to  the 
[272] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

President  of  the  United  States.  Woodrow  Wilson 
is  a  clever  speaker  and  writer.  Yet  the  usual  trend 
and  phrase  of  his  observations  seem  to  be  those  of 
a  special  pleader,  rather  than  those  of  a  statesman. 
Every  man,  each  of  the  nations,  is  for  peace  as  an 
abstract  proposition.  That  much  goes  without  say- 
ing. But  Mr.  Wilson  proposes  to  bind  the  hands 
of  a  giant  and  take  lottery  chances  on  the  future. 
This,  I  think,  the  country  will  contest. 

He  is  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  a  League  of  Na- 
tions. If  not  his  own  discovery  he  has  yet  made 
himself  its  leader.  He  talks  flippantly  about 
"American  ideals"  that  have  won  the  war  against 
Germany,  as  if  there  were  no  English  ideals  and 
French  ideals. 

"In  all  that  he  does  we  can  descry  the  school- 
master who  arrived  at  the  front  rather  late  in  life. 
One  needs  only  to  go  over  the  record  and  mark 
how  often  he  has  reversed  himself  to  detect  a  cer- 
tain mental  and  temperamental  instability  clearly 
indicating  a  lack  of  fixed  or  resolute  intellectual 
purpose.  This  is  characteristic  of  an  excess  in  edu- 
cation; of  the  half  baked  mind  overtrained.  The 
overeducated  mind  fancies  himself  a  doctrinaire 
when  he  is  in  point  of  fact  only  a  disciple." 

[273] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Woodrow  Wilson  was  born  to  the  rather  sophis- 
ticated culture  of  the  too,  too  solid  South.  Had 
he  grown  up  in  England  a  hundred  years  ago  he 
would  have  been  a  follower  of  the  Delia  Cruscans. 
He  has  what  is  called  a  facile  pen,  though  it  some- 
times runs  away  with  him.  It  seems  to  have  done 
so  in  the  matter  of  the  League  of  Nations.  In- 
evitably such  a  scheme  would  catch  the  fancy  of  one 
ever  on  the  alert  for  the  fanciful. 

I  cannot  too  often  repeat  that  the  world  we  in- 
habit is  a  world  of  sin,  disease  and  death.  Men  will 
fight  whenever  they  want  to  fight,  and  no  artificial 
scheme  or  process  is  likely  to  restrain  them.  It 
is  mainly  the  costliness  of  war  that  makes  most 
against  it.  But,  as  we  have  seen  the  last  four  years, 
it  will  not  quell  the  passions  of  men  or  dull  national 
and  racial  ambitions. 

All  that  Mr.  Wilson  and  his  proposed  League  of 
Nations  can  do  will  be  to  revamp,  and  maybe  for 
a  while  to  reimpress  the  minds  of  the  rank  and  file, 
until  the  bellowing  followers  of  Bellona  are  ready 
to  spring. 

Eternal  peace,  universal  peace,  was  not  the  pur- 
pose of  the  Deity  in  the  creation  of  the  universe. 

Nevertheless,  it  would  seem  to  be  the  duty  of 
[274] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

men  in  great  place,  as  of  us  all,  to  proclaim  the 
gospel  of  good  will  and  cultivate  the  arts  of  fra- 
ternity. I  have  no  quarrel  with  the  President  on 
this  score.  What  I  contest  is  the  self-exploitation 
to  which  he  is  prone,  so  lacking  in  dignity  and  open 
to  animadversion. 


Thus  it  was  that  instant  upon  the  •  appearance 
of  the  proposed  League  of  Nations  I  made  bold 
to  challenge  it,  as  but  a  pretty  conceit  having  no 
real  value,  a  serious  assault  upon  our  national 
sovereignty. 

Its  argument  seemed  to  me  full  of  copybook 
maxims,  easier  recited  than  applied.  As  what  I 
wrote  preceded  the  debates  and  events  of  the  last 
six  months,  I  may  not  improperly  make  the  follow- 
ing quotation  from  a  screed  of  mine  appearing  in 
The  Courier- Journal  of  the  5th  of  March,  1919: 

"The  League  of  Nations  is  a  fad.  Politics,  like 
society  and  letters,  has  its  fads.  In  society  they 
call  them  fashion  and  in  literature  originality.  Pol- 
itics gives  the  name  of  'issues'  to  its  fads.  A  tak- 
ing issue  is  as  a  stunning  gown,  or  'a  best  seller.' 
The  President's  mind  wears  a  coat  of  many  colors, 

[275] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  he  can  change  it  at  will,  his  mood  being  the 
objective  point,  not  always  too  far  ahead,  or  clear 
of  vision.  Carl  Schurz  was  wont  to  speak  of  Gratz 
Brown  as  'a  man  of  thoughts  rather  than  of  ideas.' 
I  wonder  if  that  can  be  justly  said  of  the  Presi- 
dent? 'Gentlemen  will  please  not  shoot  at  the  pian- 
iste,'  adjured  the  superscription  over  the  music 
stand  in  the  Dakota  dive;  'she  is  doing  the  best 
that  she  knows  how.' 

"Already  it  is  being  proclaimed  that  Woodrow 
Wilson  can  have  a  third  nomination  for  the  presi- 
dency if  he  wants  it,  and  nobody  seems  shocked  by 
it,  which  proves  that  the  people  grow  degenerate 
and  foreshadows  that  one  of  these  nights  some  fool 
with  a  spyglass  will  break  into  Mars  and  let  loose 
the  myriads  of  warlike  gyascutes  who  inhabit  that 
freak  luminary,  thence  to  slide  down  the  willing 
moonbeam  and  swallow  us  every  one! 

"In  a  sense  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  a  fad. 
Oblivious  to  Canada,  and  British  Columbia  and  the 
Spanish  provinces,  it  warned  the  despots  of  Europe 
off  the  grass  in  America.  We  actually  went  to 
war  with  Mexico,  having  enjoyed  two  wars  with 
England,  and  again  and  again  we  threatened  to 
[276] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

annex  the  Dominion.  Everything  betwixt  hell  and 
Halifax  was  Yankee  preempted. 

"Truth  to  say,  your  Uncle  Samuel  was  ever  a 
jingo.  But  your  Cousin  Woodrow,  enlarging  on 
the  original  plan,  would  stretch  our  spiritual  bound- 
aries to  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  make  of  us  the 
moral  custodian  of  the  universe.  This  much,  no 
less,  he  got  of  the  school  of  sweetness  and  light  in 
which  he  grew  up. 

"I  am  a  jingo  myself.  But  a  wicked  material 
jingo,  who  wants  facts,  not  theories.  If  I  thought 
it  possible  and  that  it  would  pay,  I  would  annex  the 
North  Pole  and  colonize  the  Equator.  It  is,  after 
the  manner  of  the  lady  in  the  play,  that  the  Presi- 
dent 'doth  protest  too  much,'  which  displeases  me 
and  where,  in  point  of  fact,  I  'get  off  the  reserva- 
tion.' 

"That,  being  a  politician  and  maybe  a  candidate, 
he  is  keenly  alive  to  votes  goes  without  saying.  On 
the  surface  this  League  of  Nations  having  the  word 
'peace'  in  big  letters  emblazoned  both  upon  its  fore- 
head and  the  seat  of  its  trousers — or,  should  I  say, 
woven  into  the  hem  of  its  petticoat  ? — seems  an  ap- 
peal for  votes.  I  do  not  believe  it  will  bear  dis- 
cussion.   In  a  way,  it  tickles  the  ear  without  con- 

[277] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

vincing  the  sense.  There  is  nothing  sentimental 
about  the  actualities  of  Government,  much  as  public 
men  seek  to  profit  by  arousing  the  passions  of  the 
people.  Government  is  a  hard  and  fast  and  dry- 
reality.  At  best  statesmanship  can  only  half  do 
the  things  it  would.  Its  aims  are  most  assured  when 
tending  a  little  landward;  its  footing  safest  on  its 
native  heath.  We  have  plenty  to  do  on  our  own 
continent  without  seeking  to  right  things  on  other 
continents.  Too  many  of  us — the  President  among 
the  rest,  I  fear — miscalculate  the  distance  between 
contingency  and  desire. 

"  'We  figure  to  ourselves 
The  thing  we  like:  and  then  we  build  it  up: 
As  chance  will  have  it  on  the  rock  or  sand — 
When  thought  grows  tired  of  wandering  o'er  the 

world, 
And  homebound  Fancy  runs  her  bark  ashore.'  " 

I  am  sorry  to  see  the  New  York  World  fly  off 
at  a  tangent  about  this  latest  of  the  Wilsonian 
hobbies.  Frank  Irving  Cobb,  the  editor  of  the 
World,  is,  as  I  have  often  said,  the  strongest  writer 
on  the  New  York  press  since  Horace  Greeley.  But 
[278] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

he  can  hardly  be  called  a  sentimentalist,  as  Greeley 
was,  and  there  is  nothing  but  sentiment — gush  and 
gammon — in  the  proposed  League  of  Nations. 

It  may  be  all  right  for  England.  There  are  cer- 
tainly no  flies  on  it  for  France.  But  we  don't  need 
it.  Its  effects  can  only  be  to  tie  our  hands,  not  keep 
the  dogs  away,  and  even  at  the  worst,  in  stress  of 
weather,  we  are  strong  enough  to  keep  the  dogs 
away  ourselves. 

We  should  say  to  Europe:  "Shinny  on  your 
own  side  of  the  water  and  we  will  shinny  on  our 
side."  It  may  be  that  Napoleon's  opinion  will  come 
true  that  ultimately  Europe  will  be  "all  Cossack  or 
all  republican."  Part  of  it  has  come  true  already. 
Meanwhile  it  looks  as  though  the  United  States, 
having  exhausted  the  reasonable  possibilities  of  de- 
mocracy, is  beginning  to  turn  crank.  Look  at  wo- 
man suffrage  by  Federal  edict ;  look  at  prohibition 
by  act  of  Congress  and  constitutional  amendment; 
tobacco  next  to  walk  on  the  plank;  and  then! — 
Lord,  how  glad  I  feel  that  I  am  nearly  a  hundred 
years  old  and  shall  not  live  to  see  it ! 


[279] 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRTY-FIRST 

THE     AGE     OF     MIRACLES A     STORY     OF     FRANKLIN 

PIERCE SIMON     SUGGS    AND    BILLY    SUNDAY 

JEFFERSON    DAYIS    AND    AARON    BURR CERTAIN 

CONSTITUTIONAL  SHORTCOMINGS. 


THE  years  intervening  between  1865  and  1919 
may  be  accounted  the  most  momentous  in  all 
the  cycles  of  the  ages.  The  bells  that  something 
more  than  half  a  century  ago  rang  forth  to  welcome 
peace  in  America  have  been  from  that  day  to  this 
jangled  out  of  tune  and  harsh  with  the  sounding 
of  war's  alarms  in  every  other  part  of  the  world. 
We  flatter  ourselves  with  the  thought  that  our  trag- 
edy lies  behind  us.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not, 
the  tragedy  of  Europe  is  at  hand  and  ahead.  The 
miracles  of  modern  invention,  surpassing  those  of 
old,  have  made  for  strife,  not  for  peace.  Civiliza- 
tion has  gone  backward,  not  forward.  Rulers,  in- 
[280] 


"MAXtSE  HENRY" 

toxicated  by  the  lust  of  power  and  conquest,  have 
lost  their  reason,  and  nations,  following  after,  like 
cattle  led  to  slaughter,  seem  as  the  bereft  of  Heaven 
"that  knew  not  God." 

We  read  the  story  of  our  yesterdays  as  it  unfolds 
itself  in  the  current  chronicle;  the  ascent  to  the 
bank-house,  the  descent  to  the  mad-house,  and,  over 
the  glittering  paraphernalia  that  follows  to  the 
tomb,  we  reflect  upon  the  money-zealot's  progress ; 
the  dizzy  height,  the  dazzling  array,  the  craze  for 
more  and  more  and  more ;  then  the  temptation  and 
fall,  millions  gone,  honor  gone,  reason  gone — the 
innocent  and  the  gentle,  with  the  guilty,  dragged 
through  the  mire  of  the  prison,  and  the  court — and 
we  draw  back  aghast.  Yet,  if  we  speak  of  these 
things  we  are  called  pessimists. 

I  have  always  counted  myself  an  optimist.  I 
know  that  I  do  not  lie  awake  nights  musing  on  the 
ingratitude  either  of  my  stars  or  my  countrymen. 
I  pity  the  man  who  does.  Looking  backward,  I 
have  sincere  compassion  for  Webster  and  for  Clay! 
What  boots  it  to  them,  now  that  they  lie  beneath 
the  mold,  and  that  the  drums  and  tramplings  of 
nearly  seventy  years  of  the  world's  strifes  and 
follies  and  sordid  ambitions  and  mean  repinings, 

[281] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  longings,  and  laughter,  and  tears,  have  passed 
over  their  graves,  what  boots  it  to  them,  now,  that 
they  failed  to  get  all  they  wanted  ?  There  is  indeed 
snug  lying  in  the  churchyard;  but  the  flowers 
smell  as  sweet  and  the  birds  sing  as  merry,  and  the 
stars  look  down  as  loving  upon  the  God-hallowed 
mounds  of  the  lowly  and  the  poor,  as  upon  the 
man-bedecked  monuments  of  the  Kings  of  men. 
All  of  us,  the  least  with  the  greatest,  let  us  hope  and 
believe  shall  attain  immortal  life  at  last.  What 
was  there  for  Webster,  what  was  there  for  Clay  to 
quibble  about?  I  read  with  a  kind  of  wonder,  and 
a  sickening  sense  of  the  littleness  of  great  things, 
those  passages  in  the  story  of  their  lives  where  it 
is  told  how  they  stormed  and  swore,  when  tidings 
reached  them  that  they  had  been  balked  of  their 
desires. 

Yet  they  might  have  been  so  happy;  so  happy 
in  their  daily  toil,  with  its  lofty  aims  and  fair  sur- 
roundings ;  so  happy  in  the  sense  of  duty  done ;  so 
happy,  above  all,  in  their  own  Heaven-sent  genius, 
with  its  noble  opportunities  and  splendid  achieve- 
ments. They  should  have  emulated  the  satisfac- 
tion told  of  Franklin  Pierce.  It  is  related  that  an 
enemy  was  inveighing  against  him,  when  an  alleged 
[282] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

friend  spoke  up  and  said:  "You  should  not  talk 
so  about  the  President,  I  assure  you  that  he  is  not 
at  all  the  man  you  describe  him  to  be.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  is  a  man  of  the  rarest  gifts  and  virtues. 
He  has  long  been  regarded  as  the  greatest  orator 
in  New  England,  and  the  greatest  lawyer  in  New 
England,  and  surely  no  one  of  his  predecessors 
ever  sent  such  state  papers  to  Congress." 

"How  are  you  going  to  prove  it,"  angrily  re- 
torted the  first  speaker. 

"I  don't  need  to  prove  it,"  coolly  replied  the 
second.    "He  admits  it." 

I  cannot  tell  just  how  I  should  feel  if  I  were 
President,  though,  on  the  whole,  I  fancy  fairly  com- 
fortable, but  I  am  quite  certain  that  I  would  not 
exchange  places  with  any  of  the  men  who  have  been 
President,  and  I  have  known  quite  a  number  of 
them. 

ii 

I  am  myself  accused  sometimes  of  being  a  "pessi- 
mist." Assuredly  I  am  no  optimist  of  the  Billy 
Sunday  sort,  who  fancies  the  adoption  of  the  pro- 
hibition amendment  the  coming  of  "de  jubilo." 
Early  in  life,  while  yet  a  recognized  baseball  au- 

[283] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

thority,  Mr.  Sunday  discovered  "pay  dirt"  in  what 
Col.  Mulberry  Sellers  called  "piousness."  He 
made  it  an  asset  and  began  to  issue  celestial  notes, 
countersigned  by  himself  and  made  redeemable  in 
Heaven.  From  that  day  to  this  he  has  been  follow- 
ing the  lead  of  the  renowned  Simon  Suggs,  who, 
having  in  true  camp  meeting  style  acquired  "the 
grace  of  God,"  turned  loose  as  an  exhorter  shout- 
ing "Step  up  to  the  mourner's  bench,  my  brether- 
ing,  step  up  lively,  and  be  saved !  I  come  in  on  na 
'er  par,  an'  see  what  I  draw'd!  Religion's  the  only 
game  whar  you  can't  lose.  Him  that  trusts  the 
Lord  holds  fo'  aces!" 

The  Billy  Sunday  game  has  made  Billy  Sunday 
rich.  Having  exhausted  Hell-fire-and-brimstone, 
the  evangel  turns  to  the  Demon  Rum.  Satan, 
with  hide  and  horns,  has  had  his  day.  Prohibition 
is  now  the  trick  card. 

The  fanatic  is  never  either  very  discriminating 
or  very  particular.  As  a  rule,  for  him  any  taking 
"ism"  will  suffice.  To-day,  it  happens  to  be 
"whisky."  To-morrow  it  will  be  tobacco.  Finally, 
having  established  the  spy  system  and  made  house- 
to-house  espionage  a  rule  of  conventicle,  it  wall  be- 
come a  misdemeanor  for  a  man  to  kiss  his  wife. 
[284] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

From  fakers  who  have  cards  up  their  sleeves, 
not  to  mention  snakes  in  their  boots,  we  hear  a 
great  deal  about  "the  people,"  pronounced  by  them 
as  if  it  were  spelled  "pee-pul."  It  is  the  unfail- 
ing recourse  of  the  professional  politician  in  quest 
of  place.  Yet  scarcely  any  reference,  or  referee, 
were  faultier. 

The  people  en  masse  constitute  what  we  call  the 
mob.  Mobs  have  rarely  been  right — never  except 
when  capably  led.  It  was  the  mob  of  Jerusalem 
that  did  the  unoffending  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to 
death.  It  was  the  mob  in  Paris  that  made  the 
Reign  of  Terror.  Mobs  have  seldom  been  tempted, 
even  had  a  chance  to  go  wrong,  that  they  have  not 
gone  wrong. 

The  "people"  is  a  fetish.  It  was  the  people, 
misled,  who  precipitated  the  South  into  the  madness 
of  secession  and  the  ruin  of  a  hopelessly  unequal 
war  of  sections.  It  was  the  people  backing  if  not 
compelling  the  Kaiser,  who  committed  hari-kari  for 
themselves  and  their  empire  in  Germany.  It  is 
the  people  leaderless  who  are  making  havoc  in 
Russia.  Throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
Christendom,  in  all  lands  and  ages,  the  people, 
when  turned  loose,  have  raised  every  inch  of  hell 

[285] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

to  the  square  foot  they  were  able  to  raise,  often 
upon  the  slightest  pretext,  or  no  pretext  at  all. 

This  is  merely  to  note  the  mortal  fallibility  of 
man,  most  fallible  when  herded  in  groups  and  prone 
to  do  in  the  aggregate  what  he  would  hesitate  to 
do  when  left  to  himself  and  his  individual  account- 
ability. 

Under  a  wise  dispensation  of  power,  despotism, 
we  are  told  embodies  the  best  of  all  government. 
The  trouble  is  that  despotism  is  seldom,  if  ever, 
wise.  It  is  its  nature  to  be  inconsiderate,  being  es- 
sentially selfish,  grasping  and  tyrannous.  As  a 
rule  therefore  revolution — usually  of  force — has 
been  required  to  change  or  reform  it.  Perfect- 
ibility was  not  designed  for  mortal  man.  That  in- 
deed furnishes  the  strongest  argument  in  favor  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  life  on  earth  but  the 
ante-chamber  of  eternal  life.  It  would  be  a  cruel 
Deity  that  condemned  man  to  the  brief  and  vexed 
span  of  human  existence  with  nothing  beyond  the 
grave. 

We  know  not  whence  we  came,  or  whither  we 
go ;  but  it  is  a  fair  guess  that  we  shall  in  the  end  get 
better  than  we  have  known. 

[286] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 


in 


Historic  democracy  is  dead. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  a  Democratic  party  organ- 
ization has  ceased  to  exist.  Nor  does  it  mean  that 
there  are  no  more  Democrats  and  that  the  Demo- 
cratic party  is  dead  in  the  sense  that  the  Federalist 
party  is  dead  or  the  Whig  party  is  dead,  or  the 
Greenback  party  is  dead,  or  the  Populist  party  is 
dead.  That  which  has  died  is  the  Democratic  party 
of  Jefferson  and  Jackson  and  Tilden.  The  princi- 
ples of  government  which  they  laid  down  and  ad- 
vocated have  been  for  the  most  part  obliterated. 
What  slavery  and  secession  were  unable  to  accom- 
plish has  been  brought  about  by  nationalizing  sump- 
tuary laws  and  suffrage. 

The  death-blow  to  Jeffersonian  democracy  was 
delivered  by  the  Democratic  Senators  and  Repre- 
sentatives from  the  South  and  West  who  carried 
through  the  prohibition  amendment.  The  coup  de 
grace  was  administered  by  a  President  of  the 
United  States  elected  as  a  Democrat  when  he  ap- 
proved the  Federal  suffrage  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution. 

The  kind  of  government  for  which  the  Jeffer- 

[287] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

sonian  democracy  successfully  battled  for  more  than 
a  century  was  thus  repudiated;  centralization  was 
invited;  State  rights  were  assassinated  in  the  very 
citadel  of  State  rights.  The  charter  of  local  self- 
government  become  a  scrap  of  paper,  the  way  is 
open  for  the  obliteration  of  the  States  in  all  their 
essential  functions  and  the  erection  of  a  Federal 
Government  more  powerful  than  anything  of  which 
Alexander  Hamilton  dared  to  dream. 

When  the  history  of  these  times  comes  to  be 
written  it  may  be  said  of  Woodrow  Wilson:  he 
rose  to  world  celebrity  by  circumstance  rather  than 
by  character.  He  was  favored  of  the  gods.  He 
possessed  a  bright,  forceful  mind.  His  achieve- 
ments were  thrust  upon  him.  Though  it  some- 
times ran  away  with  him,  his  pen  possessed  extraor- 
dinary facility.  Thus  he  was  ever  able  to  put  his 
best  foot  foremost.  Never  in  the  larger  sense  a 
leader  of  men  as  were  Chatham  and  Fox,  as  were 
Washington,  Clay  and  Lincoln ;  nor  of  ideas  as  were 
Rousseau,  Voltaire  and  Franklin,  he  had  the  subtle 
tenacity  of  Louis  the  Eleventh  of  France,  the  keen 
foresight  of  Richelieu  with  a  talent  for  the  sur- 
prising which  would  have  raised  him  to  eminence 
[288] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

in  journalism.    In  short  lie  was  an  opportunist  void 
of  conviction  and  indifferent  to  consistency. 

The  pen  is  mightier  than  the  sword  only  when 
it  has  behind  it  a  heart  as  well  as  a  brain.  He  who 
wields  it  must  be  brave,  upright  and  steadfast.  We 
are  giving  our  Chief  Executive  enormous  powers. 
As  a  rule  his  wishes  prevail.  His  name  becomes 
the  symbol  of  party  loyalty*  Yet  it  is  after  all  a 
figure  of  speech  not  a  personality  that  appeals  to 
our  sense  of  duty  without  necessarily  engaging  our 
affection. 

Historic  Republicanism  is  likewise  dead,  as  dead 
as  historic  Democracy,  only  in  both  cases  the  labels 
surviving. 

rv 

We  are  told  by  Herbert  Spencer  that  the  politi- 
cal superstition  of  the  past  having  been  the  divine 
right  of  kings,  the  political  superstition  of  the  pres- 
ent is  the  divine  right  of  parliaments  and  he  might 
have  said  of  peoples.  The  oil  of  anointing  seems 
unawares,  he  thinks,  to  have  dripped  from  the  head 
of  the  one  upon  the  heads  of  the  many,  and  given 
sacredness  to  them  also,  and  to  their  decrees. 

That  the  Proletariat,  the  Bolsheviki,  the  People 
are  on  the  way  seems  plain  enough.    How  far  they 

[289] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

will  go,  and  where  they  will  end,  is  not  so  clear. 
With  a  kind  of  education — most  men  taught  to 
read,  very  few  to  think — the  masses  are  likely  to  de- 
mand yet  more  and  more  for  themselves.  They  will 
continue  strenuously  and  effectively  to  resent  the 
startling  contrasts  of  fortune  which  aptitude  and 
opportunity  have  created  in  a  social  and  political 
structure  claiming  to  rest  upon  the  formula  "equal- 
ity for  all,  special  privilege  for  none." 

The  law  of  force  will  yield  to  the  rule  of  numbers. 
Socialism,  disappointed  of  its  Utopia,  may  then  re- 
peat the  familiar  lesson  and  reproduce  the  man-on- 
horseback,  or  the  world  may  drop  into  another 
abyss,  and,  after  the  ensuing  "dark  ages,"  like  those 
that  swallowed  Babylon  and  Tyre,  Greece  and 
Rome,  emerge  with  a  new  civilization  and  religion. 

"Man  never  is,  but  always  to  be  blessed."  We 
know  not  whence  we  came,  or  whither  we  go.  Hope 
that  springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast  tells  us 
nothing.  History  seems,  as  Napoleon  said,  a  series 
of  lies  agreed  upon,  yet  not  without  dispute. 

v 

I  read  in  an  ultra-sectional  non-partisan  diatribe 
that  "Jefferson  Davis  made  Aaron  Burr  respect- 
[290] 


"MAUSE  HENRY" 

able,"  a  sentence  which  clearly  indicates  that  the 
writer  knew  nothing  either  of  Jefferson  Davis  or 
Aaron  Burr. 

Both  have  been  subjected  to  unmeasured  abuse. 
They  are  variously  misunderstood.  Their  chief  sin 
was  failure ;  the  one  to  establish  an  impossible  con- 
federacy laid  in  human  slavery,  the  other  to  achieve 
certain  vague  schemes  of  empire  in  Mexico  and  the 
far  Southwest,  which,  if  not  visionary,  were  pre- 
mature. 

The  final  collapse  of  the  Southern  Confederacy 
can  be  laid  at  the  door  of  no  man.  It  was  doomed 
the  day  of  its  birth.  The  wonder  is  that  sane  lead- 
ers could  invoke  such  odds  against  them  and  that 
a  sane  people  could  be  induced  to  follow.  The 
single  glory  of  the  South  is  that  it  was  able  to 
stand  out  so  long  against  such  odds. 

Jefferson  Davis  was  a  high-minded  and  well- 
intentioned  man.  He  was  chosen  to  lead  the  South 
because  he  was,  in  addition,  an  accomplished  sol- 
dier. As  one  who  consistently  opposed  him  in  his 
public  policies,  I  can  specify  no  act  to  the  dis- 
credit of  his  character,  his  one  serious  mistake  be- 
ing his  failiure  to  secure  the  peace   offered  by 

[291] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Abraham  Lincoln  two  short  months  before  Appo- 
mattox. 

Taking  account  of  their  personalities  and  the 
lives  they  led,  there  is  little  to  suggest  comparison, 
except  that  they  were  soldiers  and  Senators,  who, 
each  in  his  day,  filled  a  foremost  place  in  public 
affairs. 

Aaron  Burr,  though  well  born  and  highly  edu- 
cated, was  perhaps  a  rudely-minded  man.  But  he 
was  no  traitor.  If  the  lovely  woman,  Theodosia 
Prevost,  whom  he  married,  had  lived,  there  is  rea- 
son to  believe  that  the  whole  course  and  tenor  of 
his  career  would  have  been  altered.  Her  death  was 
an  irreparable  blow,  as  it  were,  a  prelude  to  the 
series  of  mischances  that  followed.  The  death  of 
their  daughter,  the  lovely  Theodosia  Alston,  com- 
pleted the  tragedy  of  his  checkered  life. 

Born  a  gentleman  and  attaining  soldierly  dis- 
tinction and  high  place,  he  fell  a  victim  to  the  lure 
of  a  soaring  ambition  and  the  devious  experience 
of  a  man  about  town. 

The  object  of  political  proscription  for  all  his 
intellectual  and  personal  resources,  he  could  not  suc- 
cessfully meet  and  stand  against  it.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  affair  with  Hamilton  actually  to 
[292] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

damn  and  ruin  him.  Neither  morally  nor  politi- 
cally was  Hamilton  the  better  man  of  the  two. 
Nor  was  there  treason  in  his  Mexican  scheme.  He 
meant  no  more  with  universal  acclaim  than  Houston 
did  three  decades  later.  To  couple  his  name  with 
that  of  Benedict  Arnold  is  historic  sacrilege. 

Jefferson  pursued  him  relentlessly.  But  even 
Jefferson  could  not  have  destroyed  him.  When, 
after  an  absence  of  four  years  abroad,  he  returned 
to  America,  there  was  still  a  future  for  him  had  he 
stood  up  like  a  man,  but,  instead,  like  one  con- 
fessing defeat,  he  sank  down,  whilst  the  wave  of 
obloquy  rolled  over  him. 

His  is  one  of  the  few  pathetic  figures  in  our  na- 
tional history.  Mr.  Davis  has  had  plenty  of  de- 
fenders. Poor  Burr  has  had  scarcely  an  apologist. 
His  offense,  whatever  it  was,  has  been  overpaid. 
Even  the  War  of  Sections  begins  to  fade  into  the 
mist  and  become  dreamlike  even  to  those  who  bore 
an  actual  part  in  it. 

The  years  are  gliding  swiftly  by.  Only  a  little 
while,  and  there  shall  not  be  one  man  living  who 
saw  service  on  either  side  of  that  great  struggle  of 
systems  and  ideas.  Its  passions  long  ago  vanished 
from  manly  bosoms.    That  has  come  to  pass  within 

[293] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

a  single  generation  in  America  which  in  Europe  re- 
quired ages  to  accomplish. 

There  is  no  disputing  the  verdict  of  events.  Let 
us  relate  them  truly  and  interpret  them  fairly.  If 
the  South  would  have  the  North  do  justice  to  its 
heroes,  the  South  must  do  justice  to  the  heroes  of 
the  North.  Each  must  render  unto  Cassar  the 
things  that  are  Ceesar's  even  as  each  would  render 
unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's.  As  living  men, 
standing  erect  in  the  presence  of  Heaven  and  the 
world,  the  men  of  the  South  have  grown  gray  with- 
out being  ashamed ;  and  they  need  not  fear  that  His- 
tory will  fail  to  vindicate  their  integrity. 

When  those  are  gone  that  fought  the  battle,  and 
Posterity  comes  to  strike  the  balance,  it  will  be 
shown  that  the  makers  of  the  Constitution  left  the 
relation  of  the  States  to  the  Federal  Government 
and  of  the  Federal  Government  to  the  States  open 
to  a  double  construction.  It  will  be  told  how  the 
mistaken  notion  that  slave  labor  was  requisite  to 
the  profitable  cultivation  of  sugar,  rice  and  cotton, 
raised  a  paramount  property  interest  in  the  South- 
ern section  of  the  Union,  whilst  in  the  Northern  sec- 
tion, responding  to  the  trend  of  modern  thought 
and  the  outer  movements  of  mankind,  there  arose 
[294] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

a  great  moral  sentiment  against  slavery.  The  con- 
flict thus  established,  gradually  but  surely  section- 
alizing  party  lines,  was  as  inevitable  as  it  was  ir- 
repressible. It  was  fought  out  to  its  bitter  and 
logical  conclusion  at  Appomattox.  It  found  us 
a  huddle  of  petty  sovereignties,  held  together  by 
a  rope  of  sand.    It  made  and  it  left  us  a  Nation. 


[295] 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRTY-SECOND 

A  WAR  EPISODE — I  MEET  MY  FATE — I  MARRY  AND 
MAKE  A  HOME— THE  UPS  AND  DOWNS  OF  LIFE 
LEAD  TO  A  HAPPY  OLD  AGE. 


IN  bringing  these  desultory — perhaps  too  frag- 
mentary— recollections  to  a  close  the  writer  may 
not  be  denied  his  final  word.  This  shall  neither  be 
self-confident  nor  overstated;  the  rather  a  confes- 
sion of  faith  somewhat  in  rejection  of  political  and 
religious  pragmatism.  In  both  his  experience  has 
been  ample  if  not  exhaustive.  During  the  period 
of  their  serial  publication  he  has  received  many  let- 
ters— suggestive,  informatory  and  critical — now 
and  again  querulous — which  he  has  not  failed  to 
consider,  and,  where  occasion  seemed  to  require,  to 
pursue  to  original  sources  in  quest  of  accuracy.  In 
no  instance  has  he  found  any  essential  error  in  his 
narrative.  Sometimes  he  has  been  charged  with 
[296] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

omissions — as  if  he  were  writing  a  history  of  his 
own  times — whereas  he  has  been  only,  and  he  fears, 
most  imperfectly,  relating  his  immediate  personal 
experience. 

I  was  born  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  baptized 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  educated  in  the 
Church  of  England  in  America  and  married  into 
the  Church  of  the  Disciples.  The  Roman  Catholic 
baptism  happened  in  this  way:  It  was  my  second 
summer;  my  parents  were  sojourning  in  the  house- 
hold of  a  devout  Catholic  family;  my  nurse  was  a 
fond,  affectionate  Irish  Catholic;  the  little  life  was 
almost  despaired  of,  so  one  sunny  day,  to  rescue 
me  from  that  form  of  theologic  controversy  known 
as  infant  damnation,  the  baby  carriage  was  trun- 
dled round  the  corner  to  Saint  Matthew's  Church 
— it  was  in  the  national  capital — and  the  baby  brow 
was  touched  with  holy  water  out  of  a  font  blessed 
of  the  Virgin  Mary.  Surely  I  have  never  felt  or 
been  the  worse  for  it. 

Whilst  I  was  yet  too  young  to  understand  I 
witnessed  an  old-fashioned  baptism  of  the  country- 
side. A  person  who  had  borne  a  very  bad  char- 
acter in  the  neighborhood  was  being  immersed. 
Some  one,  more  humorous  than  reverent,  standing 

[297] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

near  me,  said  as  the  man  came  to  the  surface, 
"There  go  his  sins,  men  and  brethren,  there  go  his 
sins";  and  having  but  poor  eyesight  I  thought  I 
saw  them  passing  down  the  stream  never  to  trouble 
him,  or  anybody,  more.  I  can  see  them  still  float- 
ing, floating  down  the  stream,  out  and  away  from 
the  sight  of  men.  Does  this  make  me  a  Baptist,  I 
wonder? 

I  fear  not,  I  fear  not ;  because  I  am  unable  to  rid 
myself  of  the  impression  that  there  are  many  roads 
leading  to  heaven,  and  I  have  never  believed  in  what 
is  called  close  communion.  I  have  not  hated  and 
am  unable  to  hate  any  man  because  either  in  politi- 
cal or  in  religious  opinion  he  differs  from  me  and 
insists  upon  voting  his  party  ticket  and  worshiping 
his  Creator  according  to  his  conscience.  Perfect 
freedom  of  conscience  and  thought  has  been  my 
lifelong  contention. 

I  suppose  I  must  have  been  born  an  insurrecto. 
Pursuing  the  story  of  the  dark  ages  when  men  were 
burnt  at  the  stake  for  the  heresy  of  refusing  to 
bow  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  it  is  not  the  voice 
of  the  Protestant  or  the  Catholic  that  issues  from 
the  flames  and  reaches  my  heart,  but  the  cry  of  suf- 
fering man,  my  brother.  To  me  a  saint  is  a  saint 
[298] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

whether  he  wears  wooden  shoes  or  goes  barefoot, 
whether  he  gets  his  baptism  silently  out  of  a  font 
of  consecrated  water  or  comes  dripping  from  the 
depths  of  the  nearest  brook,  shouting,  "Glory  hal- 
lelujah!" From  my  boyhood  the  persecution  of 
man  for  opinion's  sake — and  no  matter  for  what 
opinion's  sake — has  roused  within  me  the  only  devil 
I  have  ever  personally  known. 

My  reading  has  embraced  not  a  few  works  which 
seek  or  which  affect  to  deal  with  the  mystery  of  life 
and  death.  Each  and  every  one  of  them  leaves  a 
mystery  still.  For  all  their  learning  and  research 
■ — their  positivity  and  contradiction — none  of  the 
writers  know  more  than  I  think  I  know  myself, 
and  all  that  I  think  I  know  myself  may  be  abridged 
to  the  simple  rescript,  I  know  nothing.  The  wis- 
est of  us  reck  not  whence  we  came  or  whither  we 
go ;  the  human  mind  is  unable  to  conceive  the  eternal 
in  either  direction;  the  soul  of  man  inscrutable 
even  to  himself. 

The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes, 

The  day  but  one; 
Yet  the  light  of  the  bright  world  dies 

With  the  dying  sun. 

[299] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

The  mind  has  a  thousand  eyes3 

The  heart  but  one; 
Yet  the  light  of  a  'whole  life  dies 

When  love  is  done. 

All  that  there  is  to  religion,  therefore,  is  faith; 
not  much  more  in  politics.  We  are  variously  told 
that  the  church  is  losing  its  hold  upon  men.  If  it 
be  true  it  is  either  that  it  gives  itself  over  to  the- 
ology— the  pride  of  opinion — or  yields  itself  to  the 
celebration  of  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness. 

I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  true.  Never  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth  so  inter- 
esting and  predominant.  Between  Buddha,  teach- 
ing the  blessing  of  eternal  sleep,  and  Christ,  teach- 
ing the  blessing  of  eternal  life,  mankind  has  been 
long  divided,  but  slowly,  surely,  the  influence  of  the 
Christ  has  overtaken  that  of  the  Buddha  until  that 
portion  of  the  world  which  has  advanced  most  by 
process  of  evolution  from  the  primal  state  of  man 
now  worships  at  the  shrine  of  Christ  and  him  risen 
from  the  dead,  not  at  the  sign  of  Buddha  and  total 
oblivion. 

The  blessed  birthright  from  God,  the  glory  of 
heaven,  the  teaching  and  example  of  the  Prince  of 
[300] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

Peace — have  been  engulfed  beneath  oceans  of  igno- 
rance and  superstition  through  two  thousand  years 
of  embittered  controversy.  During  the  dark  ages 
coming  down  even  to  our  own  time  the  very  light 
of  truth  was  shut  out  from  the  eyes  and  hearts  and 
minds  of  men.  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  we  were 
assured  in  those  early  days  was  the  seed  of  the 
church.  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  was  the  blood 
of  man — weak,  cruel,  fallible  man,  who,  whether  he 
got  his  inspiration  from  the  Tiber  or  the  Rhine, 
from  Geneva,  from  Edinburgh  or  from  Rome,  did 
equally  the  devil's  work  in  God's  name.  None  of 
the  viceregents  of  heaven,  as  they  claimed  to  be, 
knew  much  or  seemed  to  care  much  about  the  word 
of  the  Gentle  One  of  Bethlehem,  whom  they  had 
adopted  as  their  titular  divinity  much  as  men  in 
commerce  adopt  a  trade-mark. 

ii 

It  was  knock-down  and  drag-out  theology,  the 
ruthless  machinery  of  organized  churchism — the 
rank  materialism  of  things  temporal — not  the  teach- 
ings of  Christ  and  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion— which  so  long  filled  the  world  with  blood 
and  tears. 

[301] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

I  have  often  in  talking  with  intelligent  Jews  ex- 
pressed a  wonder  that  they  should  stigmatize  the 
most  illustrious  Jew  as  an  impostor,  saying  to  them : 
"What  matters  it  whether  Jesus  was  of  divine  or 
human  parentage — a  human  being  or  an  immortal 
spirit?  He  was  a  Jew:  a  glorious,  unoffending 
Jew,  done  to  death  by  a  mob  of  hoodlums  in  Jeru- 
salem. Why  should  not  you  and  I  call  him  Master 
and  kneel  together  in  love  and  pity  at  his  feet?" 

Never  have  I  received  any  satisfying  answer. 
Partyism — churchism — will  ever  stick  to  its  fetish. 
Too  many  churches — or,  shall  I  say,  church  fabrics 
— breeding  controversy  where  there  should  be 
agreement,  each  sect  and  subdivision  fighting  phan- 
toms of  its  fancy.  In  the  city  that  once  proclaimed 
itself  eternal  there  is  war  between  the  Quirinal  and 
the  Vatican,  the  government  of  Italy  and  the  papal 
hierarchy.  In  France  the  government  of  the  re- 
public and  the  Church  of  Rome  are  at  daggers- 
drawn.  Before  the  world-war  England  and  Ger- 
many— each  claiming  to  be  Protestant — were  look- 
ing on  askance,  irresolute,  not  as  to  which  side 
might  be  right  and  which  wrong,  but  on  which  side 
"is  my  bread  to  be  buttered?"  In  America,  where 
it  was  said  by  the  witty  Frenchmen  we  have  fifty 
[302] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

religions  and  only  one  soup,  there  are  people  who 
think  we  should  begin  to  organize  to  stop  the  threat- 
ened coming  of  the  Pope,  and  such  like!  "O  Lib- 
erty," cried  Madame  Roland,  "how  many  crimes 
are  committed  in  thy  name !"  "O  Churchism,"  may 
I  not  say,  "how  much  nonsense  is  trolled  off  in  thy 
name!" 

I  would  think  twice  before  trusting  the  wisest 
and  best  of  men  with  absolute  power ;  but  I  would 
trust  never  any  body  of  men — never  any  San- 
hedrim, consistory,  church  congress  or  party  con- 
vention— with  absolute  power.  Honest  men  are 
often  led  to  do  or  to  assent,  in  association,  what  they 
would  disdain  upon  their  conscience  and  respon- 
sibility as  individuals.  En  masse  extremism  gener- 
ally prevails,  and  extremism  is  always  wrong;  it  is 
the  more  wrong  and  the  more  dangerous  because 
it  is  rarely  wanting  for  plausible  sophistries,  fur- 
nishing congenial  and  convincing  argument  to  the 
mind  of  the  unthinking  for  whatever  it  has  to  pro- 
pose. 

in 

Too  many  churches  and  too  much  partyism !  It 
is  love — love  through  grace  of  God — truth  where 
we  can  find  it — which  shall  irradiate  the  life  that  is. 

[303] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

If  when  we  have  prepared  ourselves  for  the  life  to 
come  love  be  wanting,  nothing  else  is  much  worth 
while.  Not  alone  the  love  of  man  for  woman,  but 
the  love  of  woman  for  woman  and  of  man  for  man ; 
the  divine  fraternity  taught  us  by  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount;  the  religion  of  giving,  not  of  getting; 
of  whole-hearted  giving;  of  joy  in  the  love  and  the 
joy  of  others. 

Who  giveth  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three — 
Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor  and  Me. 

For  myself  I  can  truthfully  subscribe  to  the  for- 
mula: "I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty; 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth.  And  Jesus  Christ, 
his  only  Son,  who  was  conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered  under  Pontius 
Pilate,  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried;  He  de- 
scended into  hell,  the  third  day  He  rose  again  from 
the  dead;  He  ascended  into  heaven,  and  sitteth  at 
the  right  hand  of  God,  the  Father  Almighty ;  from 
thence  He  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the 
dead." 

That  is  my  faith.  It  is  my  religion.  It  was  my 
cradle  song.  It  may  not  be,  dear  ones  of  contrari- 
[304] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

wise  beliefs,  your  cradle  song  or  your  belief,  or  your 
religion.  What  boots  it?  Can  you  discover  an- 
other in  word  and  deed,  in  luminous,  far-reaching 
power  of  speech  and  example,  to  walk  by  the  side 
of  this  the  Anointed  One  of  your  race  and  of  my 
belief? 

As  the  Irish  priest  said  to  the  British  prelate 
touching  the  doctrine  of  purgatory:  "You  may  go 
further  and  fare  worse,  my  lord,"  so  may  I  say  to 
my  Jewish  friends — "Though  the  stars  in  their 
courses  lied  to  the  Wise  Men  of  the  desert,  the 
bloody  history  of  your  Judea,  altogether  equal  in 
atrocity  to  the  bloody  history  of  our  Christendom, 
has  yet  to  fulfill  the  promise  of  a  Messiah — and 
were  it  not  well  for  those  who  proclaim  themselves 
God's  people  to  pause  and  ask,  'Has  He  not  arisen 
already?' " 

I  would  not  inveigh  against  either  the  church  or 
its  ministry;  I  would  not  stigmatize  temporal 
preaching;  I  would  have  ministers  of  religion  as 
free  to  discuss  the  things  of  this  world  as  the  states- 
men and  the  journalists;  but  with  this  difference: 
That  the  objective  point  with  them  shall  be  the  re- 
generation of  man  through  grace  of  God  and  not 
the  winning  of  office  or  the  exploitation  of  parties 

[305] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

and  newspapers.  Journalism  is  yet  too  unripe  to  do 
more  than  guess  at  truth  from  a  single  side.  The 
statesman  stands  mainly  for  political  organism. 
Until  he  dies  he  is  suspect.  The  pulpit  remains 
therefore  still  the  moral  hope  of  the  universe  and 
the  spiritual  light  of  mankind. 

It  must  be  nonpartisan.  It  must  be  nonprofes- 
sional. It  must  be  manly  and  independent.  But 
it  must  also  be  worldy-wise,  not  artificial,  sym- 
pathetic, broad-minded  and  many-sided,  equally 
ready  to  smite  wrong  in  high  places  and  to  kneel 
by  the  bedside  of  the  lowly  and  the  poor. 

I  have  so  found  most  of  the  clergymen  I  have 
known,  the  exceptions  too  few  to  remember.  In 
spite  of  the  opulence  we  see  about  us  let  us  not 
take  to  ourselves  too  much  conceit.  May  every 
pastor  emulate  the  virtues  of  that  village  preacher 
of  whom  it  was  written  that : 

Truth  from  his  lips  prevailed  with  double  sway, 
And  fools  who  came  to  scoff,  remained  to  pray. 

A  man  he  was  to  all  the  country  dear, 

And  passing  rich  with  forty  pounds  a  year. 

[306] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

His  house  was  known  to  all  the  vagrant  train, 
He  chid  their  wanderings,  but  relieved  their  pain; 
The  long-remembered  beggar  was  his  guest, 
Whose  beard  descending  swept  his  aged  breast; 
The  ruined  spendthrift,  now  no  longer  proud, 
Claimed  kindred  there,  and  had  his  claims  allowed; 
The  broken  soldier,  kindly  bade  to  stay, 
Sate  by  the  fire,  and  talked  the  night  away; 
Wept  o'er  his  wounds,  or,  tales  of  sorrow  done, 
Shouldered  his  crutch,  and  showed  how  fields  were 

won. 
Pleased  with  his  guests,  the  good  man  learned  to 

glow, 
And  quite  forgot  their  vices  in  their  woe- 
Careless  their  merits  or  their  faults  to  scan, 
His  pity  gave  ere  charity  began. 

IV 

I  have  lived  a  long  life — rather  a  happy  and  a 
busy  than  a  merry  one — enjoying  where  I  might, 
but,  let  me  hope  I  may  fairly  claim,  shirking  no 
needful  labor  or  duty.  The  result  is  some  accre- 
tions to  my  credit.  It  were,  however,  ingratitude 
and  vanity  in  me  to  set  up  exclusive  ownership  of 

[307] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

these.  They  are  the  joint  products  and  property 
of  my  dear  wife  and  myself. 

I  do  not  know  just  what  had  befallen  if  love  had 
failed  me,  for  as  far  back  as  I  can  remember  love 
has  been  to  me  the  bedrock  of  all  that  is  worth 
living  for,  striving  for  or  possessing  in  this  cross- 
patch  of  a  world  of  ours. 

I  had  realized  the  meaning  of  it  in  the  beautiful 
concert  of  affection  between  my  father  and  mother, 
who  lived  to  celebrate  their  golden  wedding.  My 
wife  and  I  have  enjoyed  now  the  like  conjugal 
felicity  fifty-four — counted  to  include  two  years  of 
betrothal,  fifty-six  years.  Never  was  a  young  fel- 
low more  in  love  than  I — never  has  love  been  more 
richly  rewarded — yet  not  without  some  heartbreak- 
ing bereavements. 

I  met  the  woman  who  was  to  become  my  wife 
during  the  War  of  Sections — amid  its  turmoil  and 
peril — and  when  at  its  close  we  were  married,  at 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  all  about  us  was  in  mourn- 
ing, the  future  an  adventure.  It  was  at  Chatta- 
nooga, the  winter  of  1862-63,  that  fate  brought  us 
together  and  riveted  our  destinies.  She  had  a  fine 
contralto  voice  and  led  the  church  choir.  Doctor 
Palmer,  of  New  Orleans,  was  on  a  certain  Sunday 
[308] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

well  into  the  long  prayer  of  the  Presbyterian  serv- 
ice. Bragg's  army  was  still  in  middle  Tennessee. 
There  was  no  thought  of  an  attack.  Bang!  Bang! 
Then  the  bursting  of  a  shell  too  close  for  comfort. 
Bang!  Bang!  Then  the  rattle  of  shell  fragments 
on  the  roof.  On  the  other  side  of  the  river  the 
Yankees  were  upon  us. 

The  man  of  God  gave  no  sign  that  anything 
unusual  was  happening.  He  did  not  hurry.  He 
did  not  vary  the  tones  of  his  voice.  He  kept  on 
praying.  Nor  was  there  panic  in  the  congregation, 
which  did  not  budge. 

That  was  the  longest  long  prayer  I  ever  heard. 
When  it  was  finally  ended,  and  still  without  chang- 
ing a  note  the  preacher  delivered  the  benediction, 
the  crowded  church  in  the  most  orderly  manner 
moved  to  the  several  doorways. 

I  was  quick  to  go  for  my  girl.  By  the  time  we 
reached  the  street  the  firing  had  become  general. 
We  had  to  traverse  quite  half  a  mile  of  it  before 
attaining  a  place  of  safety.  Two  weeks  later  we 
were  separated  for  nearly  two  years,  when,  the  war 
over,  we  found  ourselves  at  home  again. 

In  the  meantime  her  father  had  fallen  in  the  fight, 
and  in  the  far  South  I  had  buried  him.    He  was 

[809] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

one  of  the  most  eminent  and  distinguished  and  al- 
together the  best  beloved  of  the  Tennesseeans  of  his 
day,  Andrew  Ewing,  who,  though  a  Democrat,  had 
in  high  party  times  represented  the  Whig  Nashville 
district  in  Congress  and  in  the  face  of  assured  elec- 
tion declined  the  Democratic  nomination  for  gov- 
ernor of  the  state.  A  foremost  Union  leader  in  the 
antecedent  debate,  upon  the  advent  of  actual  war 
he  had  reluctantly  but  resolutely  gone  with  his  state 
and  section. 

v 

The  intractable  Abolitionists  of  the  North  and 
the  radical  Secessionists  of  the  South  have  much 
historically  to  answer  for.  The  racial  warp  and 
woof  in  the  United  States  were  at  the  outset  of 
our  national  being  substantially  homogeneous. 
That  the  country  should  have  been  geographically 
divided  and  sectionally  set  by  the  ears  over  the 
institution  of  African  slavery  was  the  work  of  agi- 
tation that  might  have  attained  its  ends  by  less 
costly  agencies. 

How  often  human  nature  seeking  its  bent  pre- 
fers the  crooked  to  the  straight  way  ahead!  The 
North,  having  in  its  ships  brought  the  negroes  from 
Africa  and  sold  them  to  the  planters  of  the  South, 
[310] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

putting  the  money  it  got  for  them  in  its  pocket, 
turned  philanthropist.  The  South,  having  bought 
its  slaves  from  the  slave  traders  of  the  North  under 
the  belief  that  slave  labor  was  requisite  to  the  profit- 
able production  of  sugar,  rice  and  cotton,  stood  by 
property-rights  lawfully  acquired,  recognized  and 
guaranteed  by  the  Constitution.  Thence  arose  an 
irrepressible  conflict  of  economic  forces  and  moral 
ideas  whose  doubtful  adjustment  was  scarcely 
worth  what  it  cost  the  two  sections  in  treasure  and 
blood. 

On  the  Northern  side  the  issue  was  made 
to  read  freedom,  on  the  Southern  side,  self-defense. 
Neither  side  had  any  sure  law  to  coerce  the  other. 
Upon  the  simple  right  and  wrong  of  it  each  was 
able  to  establish  a  case  convincing  to  itself.  Thus 
the  War  of  Sections,  fought  to  a  finish  so  gallantly 
by  the  soldiers  of  both  sides,  was  in  its  origination 
largely  a  game  of  party  politics. 

The  extremists  and  doctrinaires  who  started  the 
agitation  that  brought  it  about  were  relatively  few 
in  number.  The  South  was  at  least  defending  its 
own.  That  what  it  considered  its  rights  in  the 
Union  and  the  Territories  being  assailed  it  should 
fight  for  aggressively  lay  in  the  nature  of  the  situa- 

[311] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

tion  and  the  character  of  the  people.  Aggression 
begot  aggression,  the  unoffending  negro,  the  pro- 
voking cause,  a  passive  agent.  Slavery  is  gone. 
The  negro  we  still  have  with  us.    To  what  end? 

Life  indeed  is  a  mystery — a  hopelessly  unsolved 
problem.  Could  there  be  a  stronger  argument  in 
favor  of  a  world  to  come  than  may  be  found  in  the 
brevity  and  incertitude  of  the  world  that  is?  Where 
this  side  of  heaven  shall  we  look  for  the  court  of 
last  resort  ?  Who  this  side  of  the  grave  shall  be  sure 
of  anything? 

At  this  moment  the  world  having  reached  what 
seems  the  apex  of  human  achievement  is  topsy- 
turvy and  all  agog.  Yet  have  we  the  record  of  any 
moment  when  it  was  not  so?  That  to  keep  what 
we  call  the  middle  of  the  road  is  safest  most  of  us 
believe.  But  which  among  us  keeps  or  has  ever 
kept  the  middle  of  the  road?  What  else  and  what 
next?  It  is  with  nations  as  with  men.  Are  we  on 
the  way  to  another  terrestrial  collapse,  and  so  on 
ad  infinitum  to  the  end  of  time  ? 

VI 

The  home  which  I  pictured  in  my  dreams  and 
projected  in  my  hopes  came  to  me  at  last.    It  ar- 
[312] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

rived  with  my  marriage.  Then  children  to  bless 
it.  But  it  was  not  made  complete  and  final — a 
veritable  Kentucky  home — until  the  all-round,  all- 
night  work  which  had  kept  my  nose  to  the  grind- 
stone had  been  shifted  to  younger  shoulders  I  was 
able  to  buy  a  few  acres  of  arable  land  far  out  in  the 
county — the  County  of  Jefferson! — and  some  an- 
cient brick  walls,  which  the  feminine  genius  to  which 
I  owe  so  much  could  convert  to  itself  and  tear  apart 
and  make  over  again.  Here  "the  sun  shines  bright" 
as  in  the  song,  and 

The  corn  tops  ripe  and  the  meadows  in  the  bloom 
The  birds  make  music  all  the  day. 

They  waken  with  the  dawn — a  feathered  or- 
chestra— incessant,  fearless — for  each  of  its  pieces 
— from  the  sweet  trombone  of  the  dove  to  the  shrill 
clarionet  of  the  jay — knows  that  it  is  safe.  There 
are  no  guns  about.  We  have  with  us,  and  have 
had  for  five  and  twenty  years,  a  family  of  colored 
people  who  know  our  ways  and  meet  them  intelli- 
gently and  faithfully.  When  we  go  away — as  we 
do  each  winter  and  sometimes  during  the  other  sea- 
sons— and  come  again — dinner  is  on  the  table,  and 
everybody — even  to  Tigue  and  Bijou,  the  dogs — 

[313] 


"MARSE  HENRY" 

is  glad  to  see  us.  Could  mortal  ask  for  more?  And 
so  let  me  close  with  the  wish  of  my  father's  old  song 
come  true — the  words  sufficiently  descriptive  of  the 
reality : 

In  the  downhill  of  life  when  I  find  I'm  declining, 

May  my  fate  no  less  fortunate  be 
Than  a  snug  elbow  chair  can  afford  for  reclining 

And  a  cot  that  o'erlooks  the  wide  sea — 
A  cow  for  my  dairy,  a  dog  for  my  game, 

And  a  purse  when  my  friend  needs  to  borrow; 
I'll  envy  no  nabob  his  riches,  nor  fame, 

Nor  the  honors  that  wait  him  to-morrow. 

And  when  at  the  close  I  throw  off  this  frail  covering 
Which  I've  worn  for  three-score  years  and 
ten — 
On  the  brink  of  the  grave  I'll  not  seek  to  keep 
hov'ring 
Nor  my  thread  wish  to  spin  o'er  again. 
But  my  face  in  the  glass  I'll  serenely  survey, 

And  with  smiles  count  each  wrinkle  and  fur- 
row— 
That  this  worn-out  old  stuff  which  is  thread-bare 
to-day 
Shall  become  everlasting  to-morrow. 
[314] 


